tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2074742043626759071.post3518234557422693981..comments2014-08-19T07:35:38.991-06:00Comments on Watching Eyes: Stupid C|Net Articlewatching_eyeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18133037840173634078noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2074742043626759071.post-72369844193581556702007-05-12T16:41:00.000-06:002007-05-12T16:41:00.000-06:00You're welcome, I've been grokking this stuff for ...You're welcome, I've been grokking this stuff for a while now, and it's a very interesting time to be alive and see this happening - I fully expect to see major reform and/or abolishment of copyright in my lifetime, especially as the younger generation who have grown up with file-sharing come into circumstances where they can do something about it.<BR/><BR/>Techdirt's recent series of articles on the economics of abundance, when the marginal cost of production is zero, have been fascinating, and seem to be right on the money - and a similar message is coming through all kinds of other routes as well.<BR/><BR/>Also relevant is that this is not necessarily dependent on what America does - it makes a lot of sense for other countries to repudiate excessive intellectual monopoly privileges, even if it means derogating from the Berne convention if necessary - developing countries such as those in Africa, Asia, and South America stand to gain much advantage from that sort of approach, just as the United States benefitted from equivalent tactics at an earlier period in their history.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2074742043626759071.post-22931101406222113282007-05-11T16:19:00.000-06:002007-05-11T16:19:00.000-06:00Your ideas are quite good (referring to Merlin's c...Your ideas are quite good (referring to Merlin's comment, not my own post :-P). I agree that limiting copyright to a much shorter term than essentially perpetual is a sensible solution to the copyright problem (and a potentially good solution for tech patents as well).<BR/><BR/>The Founder's License (or something like that) from Creative Commons is similar to this line of thinking. However, copyright holders have to opt-in to this program, and the ones that do so are few and far between. And, of course, major corporations are highly unlikely to opt-in to this program.<BR/><BR/>Until politicians escape from the wallets of corporate America, nothing will change unfortunately.watching_eyeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18133037840173634078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2074742043626759071.post-10525916991251037502007-05-11T08:25:00.000-06:002007-05-11T08:25:00.000-06:00Well, I'm not averse to the idea of abolishing cop...Well, I'm not averse to the idea of abolishing copyright, though there might be some other things that needed doing in that circumstance, even if it wouldn't be recognisable as 'copyright' in the same sense.<BR/><BR/>Certainly when I look at the present situation of automatic and effectively perpetual copyright I have little difficulty in coming to the conclusion that <B>nothing at all</B> would be better than the present broken system; OTOH I could easily see a dose of sensible and moderate reform, such as:<BR/>=> reducing duration to 7 or 14 years<BR/>=> making copyright not automatic but only in effect either through registration or perhaps just through simple assertion ('All rights reserved') so that not every note, email, blog comment etc need be covered by copyright<BR/>=> declaring all non-commercial use to be fair game, instantly legalising file-sharing, fan-based derivative works, and so on - and those hobbyists would have the promise of possibly being able to commercially exploit their efforts within not too many years, while at the same time organised commercial counterfeiting/pirating of recently released work would still be illegal and could be pursued vigorously, with a money trail to follow and seize<BR/><BR/>Not rocket science, and perhaps the end of the line for certain large corporate entities, but far better for our society and our economies as a whole.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com