22 Feb
2006
22 Feb
'06
11:12 p.m.
On Wed, 2006-02-22 at 05:23 +0100, Björn Lindström wrote:
--
Jan 'Evil Twin' Depner
The Fuzzy Dice
http://myweb.cableone.net/eviltwin69/fuzzy.html
"As we enjoy great advantages from the invention of others, we should be
glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours, and
this we should do freely and generously."
Benjamin Franklin, on declining patents offered by the governor of
Pennsylvania for his "Pennsylvania Fireplace", c. 1744
"pjfjacks" <pjfjacks(a)swbell.net>et>:
Maybe in your country. In the US, copyright is automatic and
doesn't even have to be registered (since 1998). Registering copyright
can help you to defend it but all you have to do to claim copyright is
to "publish" the work. In the legal sense "publish" means to issue
the
work on any medium with a claim of copyright on it to someone other than
yourself.
To say that a software author cannot
"own" that software nor have
copyrights to it is the same as to say an author / poet /
screenwriter / columnist / etc. cannot have any control over his
work (or get paid for doing it) once it is finished.
Well, this is really the case for most professional
authoring/poeting/screenwriting/columnwriting already. Private persons
aren't usually equipped to take advantage of the copyright laws, since
they are designed for (and to a large extent by) publishing companies.
So, to claim that protecting the current set of laws
for immaterial
monopolies is a protection of artist's and writer's rights is
hypocrisy.
Not really hypocrisy, some of the merits of copyright should be self
evident. Unfortunately Disney, and Sonny Bono, hijacked the US
copyright law and changed it from a reasonable limit to something
ridiculous.
Anyway, it's useless to argue about this in terms
of who has the
"right" to what. Copyright is a legal invention. Of course it should
be discussed and changed as the premises for publication changes.
In addition, people seem to forget it was invented to encourage
_publication_. Obviously there has never been any need to motivate
people economically to get them to express themselves creatively.
For my part I see little reason to preserve a law for that purpose,
now that we have the technology for anyone to publish any kind of
content at practically no cost.
I keep asking for this but no one is taking me up on it...send me a
copy of your latest song or novel and after I put my name on it and
publish it on the internet with me as the author we'll talk about
whether you think copyright is important.