[p2p-research] Fwd: [fcforum] Fw: iPad DRM is a dangerous step backward. Sign the petition!

[M. Fioretti]

On Fri, Feb 05, 2010 08:25:08 AM -0500, Ryan Lanham (rlanham1963 at gmail.com) wrote:

>> Almost all the actual damage caused by current copyright
>> legislation is simply a direct or indirect consequence of the
>> current _duration_. Cut that down and, while the philosofical
>> difference between advocates and attackers of copyright will still
>> remain, there will be way less practical damages to argue about.
>
> Totally agreed.  Because abundance will grow and people will be
> treated fairly.  But frankly, if we hold at 75 years, in a matter of
> a century or less, it will be largely irrelevant.  There will be so
> much public domain material, the rest will be deeply value
> compromised.

Ryan,

I think you're quite underestimating this one issue. Just think to
textbooks. In that field, having the last 75 years of production
potentially all locked by copyright is just as bad as if copyright
were eternal.

If copyright today lasted 10 years, it would still be possible to
build a complete, decent textbooks corpus for electronic or software
engineering ONLY with 10+ years old titles in the public domain. You
wouldn't study the state of the art, but you'd still learn enough to
justify your effort.

It is simply impossible to do the same thing using only 75+ old
titles, and it will be just as impossible in 2100, 2200 etc.. And this
is just the first example who came in 10 seconds to my mind because I
happen to have studied in those field and (among other things) I
happen to be teaching these days. I'm sure that people with different
backgrounds could give just as many equally valid examples

In the field of music, theather and similar, what you're saying also
means that in any moment people should either limit themselves to
listen/play songs and comedies of at least three generations before or
pay some perfect nobody to have the right to play what his/her
_parents_ or grandparents did before he was born...

For the record, 2/3 years ago in Italy there was a complain from
theather companies because some legal trick I don't remember now
forced on them some 10 years more of paying royalties to the
grand-grandnephews of Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936 I mean, 1936 for
heaven's sake!!! see
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1934/pirandello-bio.html
for biography) for the privilege of playing his comedies

    Marco
-- 
Your own civil rights and the quality of your life heavily depend on how
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