Re:Copyright doesn't need 95 years to get the job done
by tioaoa101 on Monday January 03, 2022 @07:39PM
(#29789330)
I see the tension around copyright as an instance of the tension between our personal independence and our social interdependence.
Your special effort or unique inspiration may indeed produce something valuable - and it is just that you, the individual, be rewarded for that value.
But it is also just to recognize that your ability to produce anything useful is built on the efforts and insights of countless others, most whom you have long forgotten or are long dead. The vast majority will receive no recompense for their part in your success, particularly (in my experience) the most deserving.
So it seems to me that to demand a reward at the moment of inspiration may be fitting, but the longer a society enforces an exclusive reward for ideas inevitably built on the back of the entire community, the more likely that enforcement has made the transition from something just to something unjust.
Pontificating aside, the current system makes me sad.
Your special effort or unique inspiration may indeed produce something valuable - and it is just that you, the individual, be rewarded for that value.
But it is also just to recognize that your ability to produce anything useful is built on the efforts and insights of countless others, most whom you have long forgotten or are long dead. The vast majority will receive no recompense for their part in your success, particularly (in my experience) the most deserving.
So it seems to me that to demand a reward at the moment of inspiration may be fitting, but the longer a society enforces an exclusive reward for ideas inevitably built on the back of the entire community, the more likely that enforcement has made the transition from something just to something unjust.
Pontificating aside, the current system makes me sad.