> Reduction ad absurdium, bored. It's a valid question, is it not? The protection of artists must fall along some continuum: either no protection whatsoever, t

> Reduction ad absurdium, bored. It's a valid question, is it not? The protection of artists must fall along some continuum: either no protection whatsoever, the strongest protection imaginable, or somewhere in between. So where do we draw the line? In the last few days since I wrote my response to you, I've read up a lot on the history of copyright, and why we have it in the first place. And the line drawn by the framers of our Constitution and our early courts was this: Speech and ideas cannot be property. Giving people control over them endangers free speech and harms the public. But failing to do so disincentivizes authors. Thus, the goal was to give the minimum possible protection that would encourage the progress of art and science. All the evidence suggests that the amount of protection that exists today far exceeds that minimum level. How can we justify that? > They're not guaranteed success in the current marketplace, either. Exactly, and that's great. That's how it should be. Copyright law wasn't created to force people to buy artists' work. It was created to prevent people from profiting off of someone else's work. It was created to promote progress in art and science. But today, it's clearly not. I've gotta run, but I'll leave you with this example: Every 20 years, when the copyright on Mickey Mouse is about to expire, Disney spends a ton of cash to convince Congress to retroactively extend the length of copyright terms. They always succeed, but the consequences are grave. Something like 99% of copyrighted material is no longer commercially viable more than 10 years after its creation. But since copyright terms are continually extended, all of these works remain under the control of their creators, and are never released to the public. Entire decades worth of movies from Hollywood in the 1920s an 1930s have been left to decay, because their owners have no incentive to promote them, but the public isn't allowed to access them. Our entire history is evaporating before our eyes so Disney can keep making money off of Mickey Mouse. So to recap: 1. A great many historical works of art are being lost. 2. New artists are not allowed to re-imagine old stories and art from a century ago, because it's still under copyright. (Ironic, because Disney created its art by re-imagining old fairy tales.) 3. Content companies like Disney have no incentive to make new art, because they retain control of their old art. So where's the progress? How does this system make art better?