5 ms·

The concept of "Public Domain" sounds absolutely bonkers to me. You own something and then suddenly you no longer own it. It would be like if you woke up one da

by Asooka 9y ago

The concept of "Public Domain" sounds absolutely bonkers to me. You own something and then suddenly you no longer own it. It would be like if you woke up one day to see a family of squatters living in your house, that you can't get rid of, because the person who built your house died 70 years ago and your house is now "Public Domain". We should just get rid of the public domain exception and recognise intellectual property as normal everyday property, not something that can magically becomes ownerless one day. Communism has been tried and it doesn't work. Let's not repeat the mistakes of the past. On the other hand, I do hear the plight of preservationists &c. There should be a lot more rights granted to people to use copies of other people's property. For starters, all non-commercial use should be allowed, so that old movies could be digitised and stored in better formats. After all, the studio doesn't own the tape or the DVD that contains the movie, it owns the movie itself and the type of media it's stored on shouldn't matter. This probably would also mean that noncommercial free peer-to-peer filesharing would also be legal, but honestly, if you can't compete with torrent sites, which blast thirty porn popups and show you a dozen false download links, your business probably deserves to die.

Can_Not 9y ago
> It would be like if you woke up one day to see a family of squatters living in your house, that you can't get rid of, because the person who built your house died 70 years ago and your house is now "Public Domain". It wouldn't be like that.
bighi 9y ago
> sounds absolutely bonkers to me. You own something and then suddenly you no longer own it. The fact that companies can own IDEAS don't sound bonkers to you? We should begin the conversation at that, not at the fact that the owning of ideas expires after some time. > It would be like if you woke up one day to see a family of squatters living in your house It's definitely nothing like that. A proper analogy would be saying you woke up one day to see someone else has the permission to copy (and sell copies of) your house. While you might not like it, it doesn't take away things you already have.
TheCoelacanth 9y ago
Not having the public domain is what is bonkers. Can you imagine if Shakespeare was prevented from writing Romeo and Juliet because of the copyright on Luigi da Porta's Romeo and Giuletta or if he couldn't write The Merchant of Venice because of the copyright on Il Pecorone? That is the world that our copyright laws are now creating.

by Asooka 9y ago

Can_Not 9y ago

> It would be like if you woke up one day to see a family of squatters living in your house, that you can't get rid of, because the person who built your house died 70 years ago and your house is now "Public Domain". It wouldn't be like that.

bighi 9y ago

> sounds absolutely bonkers to me. You own something and then suddenly you no longer own it. The fact that companies can own IDEAS don't sound bonkers to you? We should begin the conversation at that, not at the fact that the owning of ideas expires after some time. > It would be like if you woke up one day to see a family of squatters living in your house It's definitely nothing like that. A proper analogy would be saying you woke up one day to see someone else has the permission to copy (and sell copies of) your house. While you might not like it, it doesn't take away things you already have.

TheCoelacanth 9y ago

Not having the public domain is what is bonkers. Can you imagine if Shakespeare was prevented from writing Romeo and Juliet because of the copyright on Luigi da Porta's Romeo and Giuletta or if he couldn't write The Merchant of Venice because of the copyright on Il Pecorone? That is the world that our copyright laws are now creating.