On Sat, February 28, 2009 11:55, Emily L. Ferguson wrote: > Unfortunately, > here in the US, we have a term in our Constitution which specifies > that copyright must eventually devolve into public domain, thus > robbing heirs of the right to control usage of creations of their > elders. This is not "unfortunate"; this is the bedrock basis of copyright in the first place. Extending our system to life+50 and then life+70 was a terrible decision, I think (though harmonizing with the rest of the world is valuable); it's far too long. If everything gets wrapped up in permanent copyright, then it becomes impossible to do anything with it. Art has always been an ongoing conversation, and this would bring it to an end. Imagine if a photographer had to reach a contract with the architect of every building, the breeder and current owner of every plant, the designer of every piece of clothing, and so forth, that appeared in their pictures. "Intellectual property" is a high-level abstraction, and all the simple analogies to other kinds of property are deeply flawed. It's its own thing and needs its own rules, which we haven't gotten right yet. -- David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b@xxxxxxxx; http://dd-b.net/ Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/ Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/ Dragaera: http://dragaera.info
