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Here's an article talking about how copyrights on games are too long, andpublic domain should come sooner for some works:

Games should be public domain sooner [edit section]

== Games should be public domain sooner ==http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/02/03/editorial-why-games-should-enter-the-public-domain/ * has some good points, but lots of straw-men as well, selectively answering only the 'dumb' opposition

Here's a response that is more nuanced:http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140206/07190726113/rps-takes-critics-idea-that-games-should-eventually-enter-public-domain.shtml

Statute of Anne, the original copyright law [edit section]

== Statute of Anne, the original copyright law ==Put something here about the original copyright law.

Mason Wheeler says:

You're ignoring the relevant facts here, attempting to twist history to fit aharmful ideology. Yes, after they lost their monopoly/censorship regime, theStationers attempted various bills to renew it, but as your historian notes,every one of them was unsuccessful.

The Statute of Anne was passed in 1709, 2 years after the last of theunsuccessful Stationers' bills was introduced, and it was not a way to restorethe stationers' monopoly, but a way to guard authors against the abuses thathad sprung up in the power vacuum that resulted when the monopoly fell.Attempts to equate copyright with the Stationers' monopoly are both dishonestand harmful to the goal of positive copyright reform, so I wish you wouldn'tpersist in it.

----Richard says:

The idea that copyright went initially to an author was a bit of spin by thestationers to get a bill passed. It created a right that could be transfered tothe stationers, once again giving them control over producing copies. Theproblem that copyright solved was avoidance of competition on a single title inan industry that had to use batch production. This required that a printerestimate the volume of sales before printing copies of a book and the printerproduce the estimated number of book before selling a single copy.If somebodyelse came into the market with the same title, the result was often that bothprinters were left with a large number of unsold copies. That is at the levelof a single title, competition in producing copies was disastrous for thecompeting parties. The control over who got to print a title was a beneficialside effect of imprimatur. When imprimatur was abolished, the stationers madeseveral attempts to restore it in a milder form as a printers right, and whenthey realized that parliament was not going to give them this right they cameup with the idea of creating an authors right, which could be transferred tothem by contract.

Then, as now, "think of the starving author, artist, musician" is the cry ofthose who would control their works for their own profit.

----Pragmatic writes:

With respect, Mason, it's true that copyright began as a censorship tool. Seethis link for details:http://www.copyrighthistory.org/cam/commentary/uk_1557/uk_1557_com_972007121517.html

It's not just copyright that was used for censorship, but it was an essentialtool. See also http://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?id=41

The idea was to only let "registered journalists" publish anything and lighteveryone else on fire if they dissented.

Lord Camden quote [edit section]

== Lord Camden quote ==Here's a quote apparently from the origin of copyright:

Anyway, I think it best to quote Lord Camden in his 1774 Judgement:

If there be any thing in the world common to all mankind, science andliterature are in their nature publici juris, and they ought to be free andgeneral as air or water. They forget their Creator as well as theirfellow-creatures who wish to monopolise his noblest gifts and greatestbenefits. Why did we enter into society at all, but to enlighten one another'sminds, and improve our faculties for the common welfare of the species? Thosegreat men, those favoured mortals, those sublime spirits, who share that ray ofdivinity which we call genius, are intrusted by Providence with the delegatedpower of imparting to their fellow-creatures that instruction which Heavenmeant for universal benefit: they must not be niggards to the world, or hoardup for themselves the common stock. We know what was the punishment of him whohid his talent; and Providence has taken care that there shall not be wantingthe noblest motives and incentives for men of genius to communicate to theworld the truths and discoveries, which are nothing if uncommunicated.Knowledge has no value or use for the solitary owner; to be enjoyed it must becommunicated: scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter. Glory is thereward of science; and those who deserve it scorn all meaner views. I speak notof the scribblers for bread, who tease the world with their wretchedproductions; fourteen years is too long a period for their perishable trash. Itwas not for gain that Bacon, Newton, Milton, Locke, instructed and delightedthe world. When the bookseller offered Milton five pounds for his PARADISELOST, he did not reject the offer and commit his piece to the flames, nor didhe accept the miserable pittance as the reward of his labours; he knew that thereal price of his work was immortality, and that posterity would pay it. Someauthors are as careless of profit as others are rapacious of it, and in what asituation would the public be with regard to literature if there were no meansof compelling a second impression of a useful work! All our learning would belocked up in the hands of the Tonsons and Lintots of the age, who could setwhat price upon it their avarice demands, till the whole public would become asmuch their slaves as their own wretched hackney compilers.

----

Both Sides [edit section]

== Both Sides ==Here's a nice argument on both sides of the issue:----gwathdring says:

Sunjumper brings up a very important point, which I'm going to use as a springboard.

The instances where creative works continue to be profitable after long periodsof time and would suffer substantially from people copying what it does welland riding the bandwagon are exceptions. This whole line of argument, in myview, suffers from the delusion that in America causes us to believe we have topreserve people's path to unfettered fortune just in case one of us common folkbecomes Andrew Carnegie all of a sudden. Most authors are not J.K. Rowling. Weshould not design our system primarily to protect J.K. Rowling because whatthat ends up doing is protect the publisher and harm the creative industryuntil such a time as another J.K. Rowling comes along in which case it isprotecting one sodding solitary person at the expense of restricting the many.Rinse and repeat. That's just so backwards to me. Why do we feel the need toexpend such energy to protect our more fortunate few when we could insteaddesign realistic legislation that protected the whole system better rather thanjust it's moguls and magnates? Why must the middle class always protect theupper crust on the off chance that some day they get there? It's the same damnthing and it's only somewhat less frustrating in economic policy surroundingart than in economic policy surrounding everything else.

Because that's the other thing: copyright is economic policy. We should thinkof it as such, not as some noble quest for the preservation of ideas. But Isuppose even if we thought of it that way, it would still be designed utterlywrongly since currently it's designed to protect the profits of the few ratherthan the ideas of the many and inventive.

Finally, let's return to J.K. Rowling and Stephanie Myer. Tell me - can youhonestly say that their ideas have not been borrowed and bungled and stolen andcopy-pasted and re-issued? Their band-wagons not thoroughly overwhelmed so asto proceed down the bath at a mere crawl making dangerous creaking and bucklingnoises as it goes? Can you honestly say that copyright has prevented otherpeople from profiting from their ideas? You cannot. So what *has* it done than?It hasn't preserved their idea; it hasn't kept other people from writing TeenParanormal Romance so furiously following the Twilight extravaganza that it hasbecome a whole damn genre shelf in Barnes and Nobles. It hasn't crippledcreativity in the industry nor has it preserved ownership and sanctity of theoriginator's ideas. But has it protected the originator's profits? Well, that'sa difficult question with cultural works - is Stephanie Meyer the originator?How original was her work? How much of it was hers? What did *she* legallysteal as her many follow-alongs legally stole from her? What did she takewithout technically copying? Who's work did she lean on? Whose advice did shetake without more than an acknowledgment page mention if even that returnedthem? Further, has she not already been justly compensated? Has not herpublished raked in enough cold hard cash such that even she will never see apittance in comparison? Has financial justice not already been done?

Consider how copyright is used. Oh, no! I used the word "Twilight" in my titlefor "Twilight Haze," a book about werewolves forming a college fraternity atthe University of Washington in Seattle. Poor Stephanie Meyer and StephanieMeyer's publisher, they just must sue for me to cease and desist this travestynever mind the shelf in Barnes and Nobles filled with thousand more flagrantcopies that avoid using this phrase, that name. That's perhaps a bad examplebecause with enough money I could probably win that one - but you get the idea.You've heard those cases. You've heard of those mass-mailings, those C&Ds,those desperate attempts to preserve a monopoly even against the leastthreatening targets. All this in the name of protecting some fortunate andextravagantly successful creator's right to profit *decades* after their deathwhich in turn came *decades* after they passed out of any danger of losingtheir precious window of opportunity to profit either because they succeededand made it big or because their work had fallen into obscurity. Tolkien islong dead, but his progeny continue to man-handle his licenses and rights andkeep a firm hold on his ideas which, while close to my heart, are hardlyrepresentative of particularly profound originality - rather they arerepresentative of particularly profound creative *effort* and *labor,* effortand labor that - duly compensated or not, can no longer be compensated seeing asthe fellow is tone dead. We need not preserve the profitability of his damncorpse as though he created something so precious and unique and fundamentallyhis own it needs must be encased in the creative and financial equivalent ofmuseum glass, trotted out only when the curators need to make a quick buck.

----

facets of 'IP as property' [edit section]

== facets of 'IP as property' ==

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I'm quite at a loss as to how to better explain the workman analogy,unless you think his turning up to work each day to carry out brand new acts ofmanual labour in different places is the equivalent of sitting still in a chairwhile a shop the other side of the world sells another copy of your game.

    ''I'm quite at a loss as to how to better explain the workman analogy,unless you think his turning up to work each day to carry out brand new acts ofmanual labour in different places is the equivalent of sitting still in a chairwhile a shop the other side of the world sells another copy of your game.''

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Well lets invert that analogy shall we?

Since you posit that "a plumber demanding a fee every time you use the tap heinstalled in 1992"; is unreasonable, how about a developer or publisher is onlyallowed to charge for one copy of their game? I mean they only made one game,seems unreasonable for them to be allowed to charge multiple people formultiple copies of the game right?

Good luck finding one person to pay for that one copy of the game whendevelopment costs run to hundreds of thousands if not millions of pounds.  Isuspect if any creative industries worked in this way, none of them would existbeyond the purvey of enthusiastic amateurs.

Happy Birthday song info [edit section]

== Happy Birthday song info ==

http://freeculture.org/blog/2010/10/21/good-morning-to-happy-birthday-for-all/

[[file:Copyright-and-the-worlds-most-popular-song.pdf]]