From: m ike <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> I guess I'm just of the opinion that if I create something (write a novel) or invent something (design a new screwdriver) that I own it.
Why? Ok, if you make something, you own the physical item you made. Why do you think you have any right to the idea of that item, just because you were the first to make it? Why do you think you have a right to prevent me from making my own? Ideas cannot and should not be ownable. The very idea is ridiculous.
I didn't know this, thanks. It seems ridiculous to me that Disney has to do such things in order to maintain their copyright. I cannot image that anyone's life or happiness depends on their being able use for free a Disney character for profit (or non-profit).
Apparently you don't know what kind of scum Disney is. They've sued preschools for painting Mickey on the walls for the kids.
THis kind of behavior is dangerous for our long term society. Look at the works of the ancient world- Plato, Herotodus, Socrates, Aristotle, etc. Most of them we don't have in the original. We have what we do only because of two things- copies made by monks in the middle ages (oh wait, in todays age that'd be illegal- they didn't pay a copyright fee!) and later authors including large sections of the ancient's work in their new books (oh wait, that'd be illegal again under current copyright).
Copyright's purpose is not to protect the authors because they have some moral right to the work. They don't. It isn't about making the authors rich, or allowing them to support their families after their deaths. And why should it be- if I make a car, or a toaster, I don't get rights to it after I sell it, I don't get to support my family on those items after I die. Its purpose was to give a limited time monopoly in order to increase the amount of work created, to enrich our culture. Current copyright is failing this goal. Of all the books published in the 1940s and 30s, less than 10% still exist today. Of the books published at the turn of the century, we have several times that. Copyright is a failed experiment.
Gabe -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
