On Wed, 2005-05-18 at 20:42 -0400, Jim Cornette wrote: > Copyright has taken on the traits of limiting creativity, usability, > improvements and the like. Copyright just protects the authors right to use their material how they deem fit. It in no way limits creativity. Usability and improvements may be hindered, not directly because of copyright, but because of other restrictions placed on the materials. I, as a developer of GPL software use copyright to demand that anyone using my software adhere to the license I've imposed on it, in my case the GPL (or LGPL). Without copyright, anyone could just take my software and use it any way they wished (including in proprietary software) regardless of whether I approved or not. If I wanted this to be the case, then I could choose another license, but I like to think that if others want to benefit from my work then they should, but only if they will allow others to benefit from the work they have added to mine. But this is all license related, and has nothing to do with copyright. Don't blame copyright for limiting creativity - blame other factors - like licenses - that are imposed on the product in question. Rodd -- "It's a fine line between denial and faith. It's much better on my side"