Public Domain Enhancement Act reintroduced [LWN.net]

Public Domain Enhancement Act reintroduced

Posted May 24, 2005 22:34 UTC (Tue) by papik (guest, #15175)
In reply to: Public Domain Enhancement Act reintroduced by dmarti
Parent article: Public Domain Enhancement Act reintroduced

It's an interesting article.

But I think that he is worring too much about his daughters. He says that someone that discover a coalmine can leave it to his descendant.
I say that a craftman that builds something exceptionally beatiful, can only sell his creation once, and his childs get something only if he managed well his earnings. Why are writers child different? What have they done to have such a special honor?

He blame on governement that copyrights are too short, although copyrights exist only because of governement (and not any governement). He thinks that copyrights and patents (ideas) are exactly like physical property. That is something I can not understand.
Well I can understand, but that will create an "intellectual feudalism", whith some lucky heirs who had smart parents. This heirs don't have to be smart, work hard etc like everyone else, they cannot lose in any way their privileges, they don't have to manage well their land, wealth or coalmine and worry about competition. There is the governement doing that for them.

He says that only an handful of books are still worth something after 42 years and I agree. But the other, who are the majority and are not valuable anymore, are nonetheway crippling any amelioretion anyone could do. You don't have to stand on the shoulder of giants to do something valuable, many times you stand on shorter people.

(I hope I explained my ideas in a comprehensible way)

Papik

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