5 Mar
2000
5 Mar
'00
2:15 p.m.
Apparently we will never again expand the body of
literature or music
that is public domain. Once the works are no longer making a profit, they
will go out of print, because only the publisher has the rights to them.
Unlike the works of Beethoven and Dickens, which may well be accessible
to the public for thousands of years, the works of today's great composers
and authors will likely disappear forever.
I find it hard to picture this as a huge loss.
And then consider software. By the time software goes out of copyright,
even if binaries still exist, the source code probably won't. Maybe
people 95 years from now won't actually want to use today's software
for business purposes, but they won't even be able to look at it for
historical reasons.
I think alot of the best stuff is already open source. Sure, Microsoft Office
will lapse into obscurity, but again, I find it hard to construe this as a
huge loss.
I agree with your hypothesis that the extended copyrights are abusive,
especially if they allow work to be held unpublished, and I like the solution
you suggest of requiring payments to a copyright office to maintain copyright.
--
Jim Strickland
jim(a)DIESPAMMERSCUMcalico.litterbox.com
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