What If Copyright Law Were Strongly Enforced in the Blogosphere?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Date: December 19, 2005 7:12:30 PM EST
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] re: What If Copyright Law Were Strongly  
Enforced in the Blogosphere?
Reply-To: dewayne () warpspeed com

[Note:  This comment comes from reader Thomas Leavitt.  DLH]

> From: Thomas Leavitt <thomas () thomasleavitt org>
> Date: December 19, 2005 3:40:18 PM PST
> To: dewayne () warpspeed com
> Subject: Re: [Dewayne-Net] re: What If Copyright Law Were Strongly  
> Enforced in the Blogosphere?
>
> Dewayne,
>
> This constant reference to content as property ignores the very  
> real and
> distinctive difference, both legally and traditionally, between "real"
> property, and "intellectual property".
>
> Copyright law exists for the greater social good. Just like  
> patents, it
> is time limited (or at least it used to be), as a result of a  
> collective
> decision that a greater social good is served by having material  
> revert
> to the public domain or patents expire.
>
> Copyright, until recently, was not a "patrimony", it was intended to
> provide a reasonable incentive to create work, and receive reasonable
> recompense... given that most creative works have near zero value  
> to the
> creator after a reasonable period (it used to be 20 years), but may  
> well
> retain value subsequent to that for the society as a whole. Copyright
> law was never intended to grant ownership in perpetuity to the  
> creator.
>
> Thomas

Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>



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