3 ms·

The RMS essay on the "Copyright Trade-off" expands on what I think this post hints at. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.en.html https:/

The RMS essay on the "Copyright Trade-off" expands on what I think this post hints at. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.en.... > When the US Constitution was drafted, the idea that authors were entitled to a copyright monopoly was proposed—and rejected. The founders of our country adopted a different premise, that copyright is not a natural right of authors, but an artificial concession made to them for the sake of progress. Specifically, > The copyright system works by providing privileges and thus benefits to publishers and authors; but it does not do this for their sake. Rather, it does this to modify their behavior: to provide an incentive for authors to write more and publish more. In effect, the government spends the public's natural rights, on the public's behalf, as part of a deal to bring the public more published works. Legal scholars call this concept the “copyright bargain.” It is like a government purchase of a highway or an airplane using taxpayers' money, except that the government spends our freedom instead of our money. But what "natural rights"? > the freedom to lend a book to your friend, to sell it to a used book store, to borrow it from a library, to buy it without giving your name to a corporate data bank, even the freedom to read it twice. ...as well as > fair use I find his perspective compelling. Yet, he only cites the Constitution and one court case. Copyright has a long and complex history. I wonder what the essay "leaves out" and what other "categories of interpretation" exist.

AnimalMuppet 3y ago
A bunch of "categories of interpretation" are dead, because they lost court cases. And, the original intent is pretty clear, because the people back then left a record of why they made the law the way they did.
psychoslave 3y ago
Copyright is a common law perspective. In France for example, and I guess most of the Civil law area, authors do have morale rights, which are explicitly named thus, which are imprescriptible and inalienable. But that is in extra to patrimonial rights which cover most of what you get from a common law copyright.
- indrora 3y ago
  Japan as well has the "Moral right" thing, but in a different perspective: give back to the original author off your profit with each sale when possible. It made sense in the days of Old Edo. it doesn't make as much sense now. It complicated the used game market in Japan for ages.
  - psychoslave 3y ago
    That's yet a different matter. Morale rights in French law gives the author possibility to forbid the use of their work based on social reputation it might imply. For example a compositor can refuse that a song they wrote would be used publicly by a political party as an anthem because this party promote ideologies that the author doesn't want to be associated with. It also allow author to forbid any further publication of what they published in the past, and ask for unsold copies to be destroyed. None of the things within morale rights is about making money, at least in intent.

AnimalMuppet 3y ago

A bunch of "categories of interpretation" are dead, because they lost court cases. And, the original intent is pretty clear, because the people back then left a record of why they made the law the way they did.

psychoslave 3y ago

Copyright is a common law perspective. In France for example, and I guess most of the Civil law area, authors do have morale rights, which are explicitly named thus, which are imprescriptible and inalienable. But that is in extra to patrimonial rights which cover most of what you get from a common law copyright.

indrora 3y ago
Japan as well has the "Moral right" thing, but in a different perspective: give back to the original author off your profit with each sale when possible. It made sense in the days of Old Edo. it doesn't make as much sense now. It complicated the used game market in Japan for ages.
- psychoslave 3y ago
  That's yet a different matter. Morale rights in French law gives the author possibility to forbid the use of their work based on social reputation it might imply. For example a compositor can refuse that a song they wrote would be used publicly by a political party as an anthem because this party promote ideologies that the author doesn't want to be associated with. It also allow author to forbid any further publication of what they published in the past, and ask for unsold copies to be destroyed. None of the things within morale rights is about making money, at least in intent.