Reason #2 to ignore copyright
The Copyright Contract is broken. It is no more. Let me explain what I mean.

Copyright law (at least in the US) was established "to promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts" This was to be done by enabling congress to pass laws that would "secure[e], for limited Times, to Authors and Inventors, the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." It is generally agreed that a thriving culture and scientific community depends on individuals willing to put forth the time and effort to create and discover. This clause was put into the constitution to provide incentive to create. The artist or inventor would be given a monopoly on the distribution of the creation for, get this, a "limited time". Now in a free market economy, a government enforced monopoly is generally considered a bad thing. But the progress of society depends on new ideas. We want to give incentive for creators to create. We can use these new ideas to mix them with old and create even more new and exciting things. In order to use these creations we need to access them. That comes directly into conflict with the monopoly that creators are given.

So we strike a balance. We (the people) give the creators a monopoly for a limited time. This will give the creator time to exploit their creation and a fair chance to be reimbursed for their effort. (note that they are not directly reimbursed for creating, but for the successful marketing of their creation. But that's another story.) After that time, We (the people) get to use the creation as we see fit. This is the Copyright Contract which I referred to at the beginning of my post.

So the main question for seems to be: What is the minimum amount of time that we can grant this monopoly and still give the creators sufficient time to market and profit from their creations? The original congress was of the opinion that 14 years with the possibility to extend for another 14 years would be sufficient. I think that is more than generous.

Stay tuned for part 2 of reason 2...

- posted by Dave @ 3:43 PM