Quote:
Originally Posted by dmaul1114
It's there to make sure works stay around for posterity when there's no financial incentive for anyone to keep printing them etc.
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Absolute rubbish. Copyright is explicitly that - a limited right granted to authors to temporarily control the right of copying of works they have created. Meanwhile, public domain is also equally explicit - works in the public domain have no restrictions on their commercial use since there is nobody with said rights over them, they're
public.
Moreover, in many countries there are categories of information such as simple lists of data which are deemed unprotectable as non-creative! (although, ironically, not in the UK which uses a different test - "sweat of the brow").