GitHub is my copilot
GitHub is my copilot
Posted Jul 19, 2021 20:48 UTC (Mon) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325)In reply to: GitHub is my copilot by rgmoore
Parent article: GitHub is my copilot
As it is described in the US Constitution, for example, copyright is a subsidy ("to promote the progress of science and the useful arts"). It has nothing to do with morality and is purely an economic scheme to incentivize people to create more stuff. This is why copyright originally had a relatively short term of 14 years with an optional 14 year extension. This is also why copyright explicitly does not protect ideas, concepts, etc. Countries other than the US have a separate scheme of "moral rights" which vest permanently in the author, cannot be sold, transferred, or renounced, and are more limited in scope than standard copyright (generally having to do with attribution, mutilation of the work, etc.). Perhaps the US should borrow this idea.
Corporate interests have, in recent years, found it more useful to characterize copyright as a form of property, giving us laws like the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998. Perhaps you agree with that characterization, but it is instructive to look at the consequences which it has wrought before you assume that your characterization is the only correct one.