Re: Economics and the GP

On Mon, 17 Jun 2002, Roland wrote:

> I think you don't understand a main point. The copyright is not restricted 
> NOT because people are not convinced, but because there are COMMERCIAL 
> INTERESTS that want to maintain the copyright. Convincing anyone won't make 
> a difference. As long as there can be gained money by maintaining Copyright 
> there will always be lobbies fighting for it. Its the same with expelling 
> lots of pollution in the air. The industrial pollution is not reduced 
> because there are strong commercial interests that want otherwise, the same 
> goes for killing the wales, etc...etc....

But even most commercial interests aren't advanced by increased copyrights, 
only those few that are dependent on enduring, profitable copyrights such 
as Disney's empire.  And of course, those interests have the least right to 
complain, since they've clearly been getting the "long end of the stick" 
with the copyright bargain.  However, they're powerful lobbyists, who have 
been very successful at convincing legislatures that the purpose of their 
copyrights is to enrich the owners and (supposedly) help the economy by 
bringing in more money from other countries.

The petitioners in the Eldred case are entirely correct -- the repeated 
extensions of existing copyrights make a mockery of the U.S. Constitutional 
requirement that copyrights be granted only for "limited Times", and they 
serve no legitimate government interest, since it's clearly unnecessary to 
create additional incentives to create a work that already exists.  Since 
the entire purpose of copyright is to provide an incentive for creative 
works, for the ultimate benefit of the public, this is a travesty.

That being said, if some commercial interests would voluntarily release 
their proprietary claims to creative works after a time period which would 
correspond with a more reasonable copyright term (whether that's 5 years, 
10 years, or the original 14/28 years), and then demonstrate that it has 
little impact on profitability, this might serve to enlighten legislators 
to realize that extending government-granted monopolies to enrich the few 
at the expense of the many is ultimately counterproductive.

And if the GPL community would relinquish its proprietary interest in GPL 
code after a term which they would consider reasonable for copyright (and 
yes, allow proprietary code to be derived after that term), that could 
serve a similar demonstrative purpose, if it fails to impede the GPL goals.

And if the GPL goals are truly impeded by a simulated shorter copyright 
term, then maybe it's necessary to have longer copyright terms after all.

Deven