this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2024
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There are a lot of books that are out of print, especially reference books. And if you look for them on Amazon or eBay, they've been snapped up by scalpers who are reselling them for obscene profit.
Either make the books available for sale or quit complaining about "copyright infringement." But whatever you do, quit hoarding knowledge like a dragon sitting on a pile of gold.
Exactly. Copyright should be nullified if there's no longer first party sales.
We should also go back to the original copyright duration: 14 years with an optional, one-time extension for an additional 14 years.
Then everything created before now will compete with new copyrighted creations.
In a lobbied environment such a thing can't exist.
Probably some elaborations about what exclusive rights can and can't be should have been put into US constitution (because US is the main source of this particular problem, though, of course, it'll be defended by interested parties in many other countries), but that was written a bit earlier than even electric telegraphy became a thing.
They really couldn't imagine trying to destroy\outlaw earlier better creations so that the garbage wouldn't have competition. Printing industry back then did, of course, have weight in making laws, but not such an unbalanced one, because the middle class of that time wouldn't consume as easily as in ours (one could visually differentiate members of that by normal shoes and clothes), and books were physical objects.
Yup, copyright wasn't an issue because producing books was expensive enough to discourage copycats. The original copyright act I'm referring to was passed in 1790, which was actually passed a year before the Bill of Rights was ratified (you know, freedom of speech and all that). There was a lot of contention around the Bill of Rights, with many saying they were self-evident and didn't need explicit protection, and I'm guessing the Copyright Act was similar in distinguishing what should be a regular law and what needs an amendment.
It was probably discussed in the constitutional convention, but probably dismissed since the constitution was intended to define and restrict government, not define what citizens can and cannot do. I think that's the appropriate scope as well, I'm just sad that we've let the laws get away from us.
I don't.
You are right in the sense that it all comes down to the society having such laws or not having them (as in rioting till something changes?).
But in the sense of forces nudging these laws in one or another direction, anything that causes a constant one-sided drift when left to usual laws should be moved to constitutional ones.
The only difference in the US code vs the Constitution is the difficulty of passing or revoking them, and we've done both (alcohol prohibition). That cuts both ways. Progressives will decry the 2A, and conservatives seem to hate the 14A, and both seem to hate the 1A (at least the speech bit).
What we should instead do is adjust the barrier to passing laws. It should reaquire 60% in the Senate to block a House bill, and it should pass with 40% support. Perhaps 60% should be required for the house as well, idk. There should also be limitations on the content of bills, so fewer omnibis bills and more smaller bills (one idea is to force legislators to swear under oath that they understand the bill). That should allow popular legislation to make it through easier.
Regardless, we need to overhaul our IP laws and return them to their original purpose: helping smaller creators to compete against larger players.
That is the hardest problem to solve fundamentally IMHO. The package bills.
Which is why some people give up (or lose their mind) and become 'sovereign citizens" or ancaps.
If something does not sell anymore, automatically should go public domain or open source. Games, for example.