Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Oh, I completely agree with you. What I dislike is the suggestion that an author should have to pay for those rights, rather than being granted them automatically.
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Why? We
pay for police, courts, schools, road, and all other public goods. In America, when the land was formally claimed, you had to pay for surveying, among other things. Even under the Homestead Act, you had to improve the property within 5 years in order to keep the claim.
If you want to claim an economic benefit from your creation, you should have to pay. Nobody complains about the cost of patent filings, they aren't just handed out free. Why is copyright so
special...
Pre-Berne (1978) in the US, if you wanted a copyright you had to file for it, (just like making a claim on a piece of property), so that everyone could see that this piece of Intellectual Property was defined (you submitted a copy so there was no question what piece of I.P. was involved) and
reserved for private economic use. Nowadays I can't just pitch out a Red story, and know it's going to fall into the public domain. I have to stamp Public Domain on it!, just so that cheap people can have I.P. lottery tickets!
Sorry Harry, this gets my dander up.....