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The excuse for a limited copyright in the United States is that an author who has produced a book and has had the benefit of it for that term has had the profit
by will_brown 8y ago
The excuse for a limited copyright in the United States is that an author who has produced a book and has had the benefit of it for that term has had the profit of it long enough, and therefore the Government takes the property, which does not belong to it, and generously gives it to the eighty-eight millions. That is the idea. If it did that, that would be one thing. But it does not do anything of the kind. It merely takes the author’s property, merely takes from his children the bread and profit of that book, and gives the publisher double profit. The publisher, and some of his confederates who are in the conspiracy, rear families in affluence, and they continue the enjoyment of these ill-gotten gains generation after generation. They live forever, the publishers do. -Mark Twain
The questions you ask are complex legal questions but they aren’t novel by any means. There is over 100 years of case law in the US and I promise the courts have dealt with more interesting facts, cite more historical perspective, and use better logic and reasoning than you get in this thread.
Hell you could read Mark Twain’s entire statement to the House and Senate Committee on patents and walk away with a richer person and in Twain like fashion I’ll even link you his statement in perpetual property rights via https://www.thepublicdomain.org/2014/07/19/mark-twain-on-the-need-for-perpetual-copyright/ https://www.thepublicdomain.org/2014/07/19/mark-twain-on-the...
- chmod775 8y agoThat mark twain quote was pre-internet age. Nowadays you don't need publishers to disseminate your work.
- will_brown 8y agoAll the most successful authors in the world all seem to use publishers. All you need to do is replace publisher with online ad companies, like google, who will reap all the reward. Say there was no publisher you, me, everyone publishes Harry Potter books on our website. People will use google to find them and google AdWords on own websites to try to monetize someone else’s property, but Only the ad company wins. Honest question have you ever created anything of value that someone with deep pockets cane along and ripped off?
- michaelt 8y agoTwain's quote seems to be that when copyright expires, the retail price of a book stays the same, just the publisher stops paying the author (or their descendants). It's a long time since something went out of copyright in the United States, but I've seen similar things in other fields. In ~2008, Saleae figured out a way to make a (24MHz 8-channel) logic analyser with an off-the-shelf microcontroller, and sold it for $149 [1]. Today, you can get a chinese clone using the same microcontroller for $9 [2]. Seems to me the retail price didn't stay the same, rather it dropped by 94%, presumably due to multiple clone manufacturers competing on price. [1] https://www.adafruit.com/product/378 https://www.adafruit.com/product/378 [2] https://www.banggood.com/USB-Logic-Analyzer-24M-8CH-Microcontroller-ARM-FPGA-Debug-Tool-p-1177821.html https://www.banggood.com/USB-Logic-Analyzer-24M-8CH-Microcon...
- will_brown 8y agoRemoving the context from copyright into the larger umbrella of IP (patents and trademarks) you touch on the other half of the coin (consumer experience) whereas obviously Twain focused on the creator side. From the consumer side, I don’t purchase anything from amazon because of the counterfeit problem. Now consider counterfeits scaled to every facet of your life. In a world of no IP protections consider walking into a mall and seeing 10 Apple stores and not knowing which is the real Apple store selling real products, and which are low quality fakes. Consider the problem with fake negative reviews by competition paid for by competition scaled out to fake, shit products to destroy good will in your company/products/brand.
- ummonk 8y agoThat is a trademark issue though. Most of the criticisms of IP seem to be about patents and copyrights, not trademarks.
- michaelt 8y agoThe Twain quote says "[IP right expiry] generously gives it to the eighty-eight millions. That is the idea. If it did that, that would be one thing. But it does not do anything of the kind." I propose copyright and patent expiry _does_ do that, as illustrated by the example of a logic analyser being 94% cheaper. Trademarks are another matter, I agree.