There is a certain amount of irony that a likely possible outcome will be the strengthening of copyright laws and enforcement, at which point people will realize they won the battle but lost the war

The problem with copyright isn't that it exists and provides protections - this incentivises creators.

But life of the creator + 70 years?

Reminds me of this:

https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2007/07/research-optim...

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1436186

But isn't it copyright upon which open source is founded? The license is based on the right of the owner of the copyright to authorize someone else to create a derivative work?

Without copyright, it would be perfectly legitimate and legal for someone to not follow a license (because it would bear no legal weight because of the lack of copyright).

I would argue that open source is best served by strong copyright protections that allow the people created the software to make sure that further changes to it are released back to the community. Weakening copyright law means that it is that much easier for big companies to co-opt some software and not need to release the changes back.

Steamboat Willie was released in 1928.

People probably would have less of a problem if microsoft breached the license on 100 year old code.

> The same copyright laws that the open source proponents are complaining about MS breaking?

As long as Microsoft can and will wield those laws against me? Darn tootin'