On 8-Oct-2009, at 19:35, David Tomlinson wrote:
How about this one: (In no particular order).
[In view of various things]
Why don't we just abolish copyright ?
Being pragmatic, I’d posit that taking such an extremist perspective
is unlikely to achieve what you want. Actually, abolishing copyright
would unlikely to achieve what you want :)
Copyright was dreamed up by people I would humbly suggest were smarter
than most (if not all) of us—not to say they’re beyond criticism, but
that I would think long and hard about the ramifications of throwing
it all away for diving into it.
The problem, as far as I can see it, isn’t copyright itself, but the
evolved form which grants _extended_ monopolies which persist for
multiple generations. Personally, I’m no great fan of this.
Copyright was supposed to create a -temporary- monopoly as an
incentive for the furthering of society’s creative bleeding edge. It’s
not an absolute monopoly (there are things like fair dealings, the
right to time-shift broadcast programmes, and so on). Once it’s no
longer temporary, the ultimate purpose of it is lost. I would argue
that an extended temporary monopoly begins to share some of the same
problems that a permanent one does.
However, in light of this, we’ve been creative in a different way:
we’ve learned to use copyright as a tool to create anti-monopolies.
Things like the GPL and Creative Commons rely specifically upon
copyright’s functions both to work and to prevent others from
subverting their own purpose. Without copyright, a license such as the
GPL, which grants you permission to redistribute a work _only_ if you
adhere to its conditions, would be void.
In a no-copyright world, ignoring the reduced incentive to create
works in the first place (because there are plenty of people who do it
purely for enjoyment), somebody would be free to take your source
code, modify it, compile it, and release the binaries without giving
anybody the option of getting the source of their version: exactly
what the GPL attempts to prevent. Essentially, everything becomes
public domain, whether you like it or not, and it actually ends up
being the worst of both worlds.
The real solution is to redress the balance: bring consumer rights up
to date to more closely match expectations (for example, the fact that
it’s copyright infringement to rip a CD that you bought is way out of
step with modern reality); and restore the temporary nature of the
monopoly—15 years, perhaps? I’m not sure—it needs careful thought.
But abolishing it altogether? Irrespective of its merits, by taking a
far-flung stance, you’re more likely to get yourself written off as
being crazy than make real headway in affecting change. Softly softly
catchy monkey :)
M.
--
mo mcroberts
http://nevali.net
iChat: [email protected] Jabber/GTalk: [email protected] Twitter:
@nevali
Run Leopard or Snow Leopard? Set Quick Look free with DropLook -
http://labs.jazzio.com/DropLook/
-
Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please
visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html.
Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
