20 Feb
2006
20 Feb
'06
7:33 p.m.
Rob wrote:
On Mon February 20 2006 17:13, Lee Revell wrote:
I am assuming you are talking about the US. I'm not certain that we
could call 14 years a century. The first copyright act was passed (in
the US anyway) just 14 years after we became a union and declared our
independence.
The point is, the developer of a piece of software
has the
right to release it under any license they choose. It's not
OK to violate the license (whether open source or proprietary)
just because you disagree with it.
They have the legal right, thanks to a century of lobbying by
people who had too much money to begin with, but the idea that
they have the moral right is purely your opinion.
Despite
making my living writing and oftentimes selling software, I
don't share that opinion.
There is no reason to question the morality of it. The concept is what
gives people incentive to produce with the idea that their work won't go
unrewarded... ie being used by someone with much more money and
resources as their own. I do agree with the concept of limiting the
times to a vastly shorter time frame in order to encourage innovation
even more. I like the time frame of (arbitrarily) 1 year. To remove
the copyright capabilities would ensure that fewer people would care.
I love free software of all types, I think it's a wonderful expression
of kindness and giving back to the world. Make no mistake, if you
remove all copyright law, you will not see the kind of freedom you want,
you will see a tyranny you have never known.
If you wish to talk only about the morality of it... what is the
morality of a man and his family starving because he can't own his
original works, but instead ViaCom (as an example) has invested millions
in the advertising of it for their own profit... I should be able to
own it and I should also be given reasonable time to recoup the cost of
making said work... (once again I like a year).