> Apparently we will never again expand the body of literature or music
> that is public domain. Once the works are no longer making a profit, they
> will go out of print, because only the publisher has the rights to them.
> Unlike the works of Beethoven and Dickens, which may well be accessible
> to the public for thousands of years, the works of today's great composers
> and authors will likely disappear forever.
I find it hard to picture this as a huge loss.
>
> And then consider software. By the time software goes out of copyright,
> even if binaries still exist, the source code probably won't. Maybe
> people 95 years from now won't actually want to use today's software
> for business purposes, but they won't even be able to look at it for
> historical reasons.
I think alot of the best stuff is already open source. Sure, Microsoft Office
will lapse into obscurity, but again, I find it hard to construe this as a
huge loss.
I agree with your hypothesis that the extended copyrights are abusive,
especially if they allow work to be held unpublished, and I like the solution
you suggest of requiring payments to a copyright office to maintain copyright.
--
Jim Strickland
jim_at_DIESPAMMERSCUMcalico.litterbox.com
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Received on Sun Mar 05 2000 - 22:15:37 GMT