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Posted by PTravel on 12/05/06 19:04
"Paul Rubin" <http://phr.cx@NOSPAM.invalid> wrote in message
news:7xodqidhj7.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com...
> "PTravel" <ptravel@travelersvideo.com> writes:
>> > No amendment to the constitution would be needed to make all
>> > copyrights expire 24 hours after being issued, or to stop issuing them
>> > altogether.
>>
>> True, but that's not going to happen. Why in the world should a
>> copyright
>> expire after 24 hours, or not issue at all?
>
> Well, you were the one that brought up constitutional amendments. I'm
> pointing out that no amendment would be needed to make such a change.
> Whether such a change is desirable is a political question, and as
> with any such question, opinions vary.
The post to which I replied argued that copyright infringement doesn't
really harm the copyright holder. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution
reserves to the author the rights protected by copyright. In order to
consider "harm to the copyright owner" in determining infringement
liability, a Constitutional amendment would be necessary to change Article
I, Section 8's exclusion rights reservation.
>
>> I'm not quite sure what you mean by "set back to where it was."
>> However, again, there is no reason to limit exclusivity, nor is it
>> likely to happen.
>
> The scope of exclusivity conferred by a copyright has varied
> considerably (mostly increasing) over the centuries. We have not
> quite reached this point, but we are getting there:
>
> http://www.theonion.com/content/node/43029
>
> For a general introduction to the issues, see the book "Free Culture"
> by Prof. Lawrence Lessig of Stanford Law School, downloadable from
>
> http://free-culture.org
> http://www.free-culture.cc/freeculture.pdf (pdf download link)
> http://free-culture.org/remixes/ (other formats)
I don't need an introduction to these issues, and I'm very familiar with
copyright jurisprudence. Rather than the read the "information should be
free" advocacy pieces, you might want to look at "Law and Economics" by
Posner, which is a good, objective examination of the relationship between
legal rights and economics.
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