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Why should a law that has its roots in 17th century censorship continue to be clung to in the 21st century? Times have changed, get over it and develop a busin

Why should a law that has its roots in 17th century censorship continue to be clung to in the 21st century? Times have changed, get over it and develop a business model that is more appropriate for this century.

alexqgb 14y ago
Why don't you apply this line of thought to the 4th Amendment, and see if it still makes sense to you?
- betterunix 14y ago
  OK, sure: we have the same problem today that we had back then, which is the tendency of governments to descend into tyranny. The 4th amendment is a protection against that and so it remains relevant. Copyright was began with an effort to simplify tyranny, and later evolved into a way to promote the interests of the publishing industry. Neither of those are relevant to today's world; we do not want the Star Chamber and the publishing industry is no longer necessary to spread information and entertainment. Why, then, should we keep copyright around?
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - alexqgb 14y ago
    "the publishing industry is no longer necessary to spread information and entertainment." What's your real problem here? Are you smart but dishonest? Or are you just a complete idiot? Because there's no way an informed person of good will could say something as obviously wrong as that. Seriously, publishers do a hell of a lot more than just "spread" information an entertainment. They actually produce the goddamn stuff. Moreover, they do so by putting billions (with a b) at risk. And thank goodness for that, since producing top-flight media remains an insanely difficult, expensive, and risky thing to do. And that's the reason copyright exists: to ensure when some of the bets these publishers place do turn into giant booming successes, they can actually recover enough of their investment to remain profitably engaged in the production business. An an institution, copyright has problems galore, but as Churchill said of democracy "is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

alexqgb 14y ago

Why don't you apply this line of thought to the 4th Amendment, and see if it still makes sense to you?

betterunix 14y ago
OK, sure: we have the same problem today that we had back then, which is the tendency of governments to descend into tyranny. The 4th amendment is a protection against that and so it remains relevant. Copyright was began with an effort to simplify tyranny, and later evolved into a way to promote the interests of the publishing industry. Neither of those are relevant to today's world; we do not want the Star Chamber and the publishing industry is no longer necessary to spread information and entertainment. Why, then, should we keep copyright around?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- alexqgb 14y ago
  "the publishing industry is no longer necessary to spread information and entertainment." What's your real problem here? Are you smart but dishonest? Or are you just a complete idiot? Because there's no way an informed person of good will could say something as obviously wrong as that. Seriously, publishers do a hell of a lot more than just "spread" information an entertainment. They actually produce the goddamn stuff. Moreover, they do so by putting billions (with a b) at risk. And thank goodness for that, since producing top-flight media remains an insanely difficult, expensive, and risky thing to do. And that's the reason copyright exists: to ensure when some of the bets these publishers place do turn into giant booming successes, they can actually recover enough of their investment to remain profitably engaged in the production business. An an institution, copyright has problems galore, but as Churchill said of democracy "is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."