On Dec 5, 2006, at 4:58 AM, Johannes Gebauer wrote:
This is precisely the reason I said I don't think that Haydn would have composed quartets were it not for his own profit. Had there not been some basic copyright law in place there simply wouldn't have been an incentive to compose them in the first place.
Which is why copyright is a good thing. I haven't noticed that anyone here is arguing for doing away with copyright altogether. If anyone is, I certainly disagree.
I notice that the reason you give is precisely the "American" reason (the whole world benefits when artists are given incentive to publish) as opposed to the "European" reason (anything he writes belongs to him and therefore he has a natural right to tell others they can't write the same thing).
What I want to know is whether Haydn would have written his pieces if he had a secure copyright for, say, 28 years from publication, as opposed to 70 years after his death. I think he would. If that's sufficient to persuade him to write and publish, then why offer him 100 more bonus years?
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