[free-sklyarov] The digital copyright tug o' war

[Mark K. Bilbo]

And the founding fathers who CREATED copyright and patents were quite adamant 
over the idea that such monopolies *should expire. That the monopoly would be 
granted *only for a short time and *only so long as it was beneficial to 
society to do so.

They did NOT seek to create a "property" style entitlement. This so called 
"intelectual property" isn't in line with the founders' thinking and is, in 
fact, a bastardization and corruption of their intent.

Thomas Jefferson was so concerned over the potential for censorship inherent 
in government grants of monopolies over ideas that he wanted an amendment 
included in what we now know as the "Bill of Rights" that would limit all 
such grants of monopoly to a specific number of years with NO extensions.

He was right. And too bad it wasn't done.

Mark

On Friday 03 August 2001 22:03, Bob Smart wrote (snipping for space):

> One of the reasons for HAVING copyrights and patents in the first place is
> to "promote the useful arts and sciences," and a key part of that is the
> mechanism for ensuring that copyrights and patents eventually expire and so
> become part of the pool of intellectual capital that drives and sustains
> future development.  Granting perpetual and impenetrable proprietary
> control over intellectual works does not promote their dissemination and
> improvement, it stifles further development and deprives society of
> continued intellectual progress.
>
> Likewise, the social benefit of allowing creators to make money from their
> work is that in return, society gains the use of the new material or
> invention.  When creators are allowed to impose excessively strict or
> arbitrary limits on how the protected material may be used, then society
> gains less benefit and has less reason to extend protection--the author
> gets all the money, but the society that makes that arrangement possible
> doesn't get the goods.
>
> "Fair use" isn't just a loophole for free riders.  It's essential to the
> functioning of an intellectual property marketplace, and we dismember it at
> our peril.