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As much as I hate the situation and as much as I agree with you, your contradiction answers why: " But it's crazy that 100 year old scientific works can still
by NamTaf 10y ago
As much as I hate the situation and as much as I agree with you, your contradiction answers why:
" But it's crazy that 100 year old scientific works can still be under copyright and illegal to distribute. These objectively have value to society, and the argument for the existence of the public domain is much stronger.
And why on Earth should copyright last last so long to begin with? How many works are worth anything after 10 or 15 years?"
The nature of capitalism means that because there's value to those scientific works, someone will try to extract wealth from them. That's why this happens across the board.
- SamBam 10y agoSure, but the laws regarding eminent domain already show that the state can appropriate property if it's considered to be in the public good. Just because something has value it doesn't mean that we have to allow someone to extract wealth from it. Regardless, I see what you're saying about OP contradicting his/herself, but it's not necessarily a contradiction: the value to society may be greater than that to the copyright holder. Of the millions of works still under copyright today created in 1960, only a handful are still generating wealth for their copyright holders. But could all those works which are not generating wealth actually be valuable to modern people breathing life into old works by republishing or remixing? Perhaps.
- loqwe 10y agoThis is incorrect. Old works are not copyright-locked because the owner can charge for access. Old works are copyright-locked because they compete with new marketable products. If we could watch classic films/music/etc for free, we'd spend less on new films/music/etc