When copyright laws were created in this country, they served to protect the economic relationship between author and publisher, by preventing other publishers from ripping off the author's work without paying him or her. This was back when publishers were few, because publication equipment (the printing press) was very expensive. Anyone with education could in theory be an author, but few could be a publisher -- therefore, copyright protected the majority of potential authors from the minority of potential publishers. T he freedom of the masses was not impinged; only the freedom of publishers (to rip off authors with whom they don't have contracts) was restricted.
Now, however, copyright laws "protect" corporate entities which are both author and publisher (like Microsoft) from _the entire public_, since any member of the public who has a computer can be a publisher. Very few can be authors of software, only those who know how to program, while literally anyone with a computer can publish software. The freedom of the masses to freely use their computers (to copy software) is gratuitously restricted in such a regime. Further, the freedom of potential authors to improve upon software is also restricted. With common-use distribution methods such as Napster and Gnutella, or digital playback technologies such as CD players or even something like Final Scratch (http://www.finalscratch.com), this author/publisher paradigm can be applied to music as well. Times are changing. Is it reasonable to thus protect the economic interests of a tiny minority at the expense of the freedom of the majority? Is it reasonable to do so if, in so doing, one also restricts progress by other authors? Is this what George Washington meant when he asked Congress in 1790 to enact copyright laws in order to further the accumulation of human knowledge? Worse yet, consider the treatment of third-world countries who do not have (or do not enforce) copyright laws, by American business. Business demands that they enact and enforce these laws, when there is _virtually no citizen of these countries_ who would gain from these laws. Only the American business interests would gain. The copyright industry has gotten so arrogant that it would ask foreign nations to sign over their citizens' freedoms for nothing in return. Remember, copyright is not and has never been, a "right" in the same sense that freedom of speech and the right to life are rights. It has _always_ been a government-enacted privilege, enacted for a purpose. Namely, "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries" (check the Constitution; Article I, section 8, paragraph 8). When it fails to actually promote art & science but instead restricts unduly their progress, favoring instead economic special interests, copyright has lost its purpose and in so doing has become unconstitutional. - Craig
