On Sat, 2003-01-18 at 18:10, Sellam Ismail wrote:
On 17 Jan 2003, Paul wrote:
If copyright suddenly disappeared, people would
still write stories,
sing songs, program computers and society at-large would continue.
True, or did creativity start when copyright laws were put into effect?
I think we both know that creativity has always existed, the only thing
that copyright does is provide a slight incentive. :^)
The generally
quality of works would probably be lower so copyright in
general is probably good for society.
There is an inifinite body of work that precedes copyright law which is
greater in quality than anything being produced today ;)
There is a very large body in the public domain ... though I remember
reading a study that show of all the works that have been resisted to
the library of congress 90%+ have been registered in the last 70 years,
but this does not really cover *old* works.
The stuff that has survived hundred or thousands of years is of course
better quality than most the stuff produced today because of a form of
"natural selection" were people naturally protect works that are
compelling in some way.
Regards,
Paul