Scribit Bas Wijnen dies 04/05/2006 hora 09:22: > We have all these cool new options, but we'll block them because some > guys with a lot of money are too lazy to come up with a new business > plan.
That's very harsh and I suspect you have no regular author or artist in your relatives. But there is here a deep difference between me and at least Marcus and you: I am deeply convinced that we should let people do bad things that only harm themselves. That is, if some software author wants to publish closed source and ask a giantic fee, no problem. I am aware that in some cases, at least when there is collusion or monopoly, their freedom to do anything with their own work begins to harm the freedoms of others. But I'm also convinced that there are much better way to fight those cases than forbidding those unethical behaviours. Free software is a very good example. There has been, and there still is, a struggle against proprietary software, and this latters clearly harm society. But when you fight too directly the evil that is inside human nature, instead of bringing the good that is inside it to fight for you, I'm really convinced you do more harm than good. To sum up, I think the fact that some of us can harm the others because we abuse our own freedoms is sometimes a price to pay for the humanity to evolve for the better. It is very difficult, though, to distinguish when the harm is too much compared to what freedom should be taken to avoid it. In the case of copyright, I still think reasoning only about the cost is delusional. It has never been the real issue. For what I know, never. As Marcus cited Hegel, one's work is something that reflects himself, it's a part of him. It should lead us to give some control to the author on his work. If you give too much freedom to the public here, you could do a lot of harm to authors. I really think that could bring them to produce less. Much less, I don't know... BTW, I have a question for the sake of curiosity: do you place everything you produce in public domain? > > I agree that ideas should always be free. Indeed, society globally > > agrees with that, and patents and copyrights are exceptions. This is > > chy they have a duration. Thoses exceptions could not last forever. > The US no longer agrees. They intend to extend the duration of > copyright on regular intervals (just before Mickey Mouse would > expire), also effecting existing works (that is, Mickey Mouse). Yes, this is something we should be very concerned about. That is really a perversion of the copyright idea. > I think that the term for copyrights is absurdly long, which > effectively makes them "forever", and (due to the almost zero cost > copying) it isn't realistic (or desirable) anymore to promise authors > that they have the exclusive right on making copies. I would tend to agree that copyright term should be lowered now, instead of extending it. I think it should be a great way to adapt to our new millenium. FWIW, we should do the same for patents, which would make them less dangerous and then less useful for those who abuse them. > > I'm less sure about patents. > Patents are even worse, and also even more off-topic. ;-) Patents are all but a trivial issue. Ethically, Nowhere man -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] OpenPGP 0xD9D50D8A
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