SV: Knight and Public Domain

[Tommy Tyrberg <tommy.tyrberg@norrkoping.mail.telia.com>]

I completely agree that that the current copyright laws are absurd. One
just has to compare with patent law to realise how grotesque they are.
Now if patent laws were the same as copyright law, in most of the World
the Wright Brothers' patent on aircraft would still have 10 years left
on it.

Now it is not immediately obvious to me that e. g. playing a tune is
intrinsically a more demanding or worthy pursuit than inventing the
aeroplane. 

As a matter of fact about the only field where it does seem that longer
monopol rights might be desirable is patents on drugs. It is generally
recognized that the dearth of new antibiotics is at least partly due to
the fact that the patent period is too short to recoup the massive
development and testing costs.

Tommy Tyrberg   




-----Ursprungligt meddelande-----
Från: owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu [mailto:owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu] För Mike
Taylor
Skickat: den 15 maj 2008 15:05
Till: jrc
Kopia: dinosaur@usc.edu
Ämne: Re: Knight and Public Domain

jrc writes:
 > I sit on a Board that derives part of its income from some of the
 > copyrights of the author Robert A. Heinlein.  Pirating of his works
 > is a considerable problem.  Personally, I would prefer that
 > copyright laws be more stringent rather than less.

Unfortunately (for both of us), personal preferences aren't important
here.  What should be important is the intention of the framers of the
constitution and the Supreme Court.  What is actually important is the
preferences of the massive media conglomerates who fund legislation.

 _/|_
___________________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor    <mike@indexdata.com>
http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\  "Fussing and flapping in priestly black like a murder of crows"
         -- Sting, "All This Time"