On 23 Oct 2007 at 12:57, Martin Banner wrote: > If someone creates something, physical or intellectually, shouldn't > that person be entitled to some sort of financial benefit for his/her > entire lifetime, regardless of how long?
Physical objects are not an abstract concept, so property rights for them are pretty clearcut. Intellectual property, on the other hand, is an abstract constructions, and entirely the product of law. Someone can easily retain control of their intellectual property throughout their own lifetime by simply not publishing it. In that case, it's very much like physical property (I can't have your comfy chair until the estate auction). Once you've published it, though, it enters a different realm, a *public* realm, and the theory of limited term of copyright is based on balancing the benefit to the public of creative work entering the public domain with economic incentives for the creators of IP. Somewhere between 0 and eternity is a reasonable copyright term. I just happen to think that the optimum term is subtantially closer to 0 than to eternity. -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
