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I'm curious, is there historical evidence of whether short-term copyright protection (14 years) allowed greater innovation in society than no copyright, or the

• flatulent1 16y ago
  I ran across an interesting piece which looks at history and the impact of copyright law. It contrasts England and Germany and looks at growth and publishing during the industrial revolution. http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,710976,00.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,710976,...
• mjgoins 16y ago
  I don't think strict 14 year copyright was in effect anywhere where industrialized printing and reproduction was also extant. On the other hand, there have been documented instances where simply ignoring copyright led to economic boom. There have been plenty of recent articles on that.
  • meric 16y ago
    Hmm how would you know if simply ignoring copyright isn't just killing the goose for the golden eggs? If patents and copyrights really do promote innovation, you could be stunting innovation for the long term, even if you could put already-made discoveries to good use in the short term. It'd have been nice to see what specific examples of recent articles you're talking about.
• greyfade 16y ago
  Yes. The book "Against Intellectual Monopoly" details a significant number of cases dating as far back as the Statute of Anne and as recently as modern developing nations. In every single case, the evidence shows that the absence of Copyright has spurred more creativity and cultural expression than its presence. Moreover, the shorter the Copyright, the greater the quantity of expression.