My problem with copyright law is that nothing produced in my lifetime will be in the public domain in my lifetime. The public domain essentially disappeared after 1930. Nothing since then is out of copyright. (In the USA - it's complicated!) Therefore, the social contract established in the Constitution is no longer a reality. I am giving up certain benefits (the ability to freely exchange information), but getting nothing at all in return. The original copyright was intended to give people an incentive to create new knowledge. Now, it's a way to control works in perpetuity - especially works which can be withdrawn from the public where there is no legal way to access them, and works which are abandoned but still under copyright. (It's essentially illegal to do historical research into 1980s computing, since the commercial programs of the era are still under copyright - which won't expire until I am almost dead - and most of these copyrighted works are totally abandoned either by the company that produced them going kaput, being bought out, or continuing in a form that's unrecognizable now. For me to get a copy of one of these programs is technically illegal.) The law is utterly unrealistic now, so I'm not surprised at widespread civil disobedience.
22 Feb 2013, 6:36 pm
