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Just to counter your #2 I don't think the compensation argument is a good one. First of all its wielded as if work somehow is valuable in it self and thus warr

Just to counter your #2 I don't think the compensation argument is a good one. First of all its wielded as if work somehow is valuable in it self and thus warrants "compensation". Which cannot be true, there are many things not worth doing, and even some things better not done at all. In reality though not even copyright ensures any work is compensated. Which, even further makes the connection between copyright and creative work incentives weak. As others in this thread has pointed out, there are other motivations than monetary. So it's not even given that "compensation" is needed at all (whatever we mean by "needed") But even if we deem compensation required, what is to say that a free market would fail to provide compensation? As a developer most of the code I produce is paid for buy clients with no specific dependency on copyright. What makes other creative industries different? So not only do I question your #2, even #1 is suspect in my mind. I don't believe copyright in general is a good thing, and in my mind the burden of proof that it is lies on those promoting it.

andersonvom 11y ago
When I say compensation I'm not restricting it to "monetary compensation". In this sense, the years of "monopoly" over someone's work to benefit from it as they see fit is the actual compensation I was referring to. As a developer, most likely your clients hold the copyright to the code you write, especially if this is not explicit in any other way. And even if you go one step further, the entire free software movement is based on copyright: the existence of copyright is what guarantees software remains free once published. Otherwise, people could just fork the code and close the source again. To your last point, given that copyright already exists, is in place, and lasts for way too long, I believe it's the other way around: the burden of the proof lies on whoever wants to change it.

andersonvom 11y ago

When I say compensation I'm not restricting it to "monetary compensation". In this sense, the years of "monopoly" over someone's work to benefit from it as they see fit is the actual compensation I was referring to. As a developer, most likely your clients hold the copyright to the code you write, especially if this is not explicit in any other way. And even if you go one step further, the entire free software movement is based on copyright: the existence of copyright is what guarantees software remains free once published. Otherwise, people could just fork the code and close the source again. To your last point, given that copyright already exists, is in place, and lasts for way too long, I believe it's the other way around: the burden of the proof lies on whoever wants to change it.