Society has long recognized that there is a tradeoff between benefits to the creator and benefits to society. As evidenced by e.g. the US copyright clause which says that Congress can (not must) extend copyrights to further the progress of the sciences and the useful arts (not to reward content creators, that's a means, not an end).
I am sure many other creators/artists/inventors feel the same way.
You mean your right to tell other people what they can or cannot do.
Copyright does not give you a right to do any more than you can anyway. It removes the normal rights of everyone else.
Without copyright you are still entirely free to sell copies of 'your' things. It is just that everyone else can too, so the normal functioning of the market will drive down the price so it will not suit you individually.
Copyright is really a privilege. It is something bestowed by the public, for the benefit of everyone.
> see how long I continue to make my new creations available
I suggest that might be a risky or weak strategy. People will create and communicate things anyway -- as they have been evolved to do. You will just be removing yourself from the cultural gene-pool.
While there is some romantic appeal to the notion of a Galt's Gulch where the special creative people retreat, one should be cautious about the approach of holding your breath until other people's faces turn blue. It leads to dubious hyperbole like the member of the US House of Representatives who insisted that if we didn't extend Disney merchandising rights, we would be depriving society of its next Shakespeare. Ahem.
For a more scholarly discussion of the dubious merits of intellectual property, you can read Bodrin & Levine's book[1] "Against Intellectual Monopoly" -- it's available free on their site and other places.
[1] http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/againstfi...
I don't think anyone is (seriously) suggesting doing away with copyrights entirely. The real question is: how much incentive do you really need? Would you really say "well, if I put work into this, after 50 years anyone can make money off of my effort, so f..k it!"? I have a feeling 20 or even 10 years would be sufficient payback time. After all, patents are limited to fairly short times and it's not like there's a shortage of patent applications.
That's incorrect. See below.
> Society has long recognized that there is a tradeoff between benefits to the creator and benefits to society. As evidenced by e.g. the US copyright clause which says that Congress can (not must) extend copyrights to further the progress of the sciences and the useful arts (not to reward content creators, that's a means, not an end).
Yes, and society has decided that the proper balance in that tradeoff is to give creators the choice in deciding when particular copies of their works are made available to the public, which means that it is in fact their choice.
>Yes, and society has decided that the proper balance in >that tradeoff is to give creators the choice in deciding >when particular copies of their works are made available to >the public, which means that it is in fact their choice.
Not true. There is a fixed length to which copyright on your work lasts. Its not forever and you don't decide the length.
Why do you think the society puts a limit on it? Because in essence copyright is a restrictive right. It tells you what you CANNOT do. Copyright is not a right but a privilege in the sense that it tells others not to make copies of the work that you created first.
The real reason of having a copyright is not 'for the advancement of science (and culture)'. It is to incentivize the copyright owners to share their creation so in that sense the copyright law is actually created to promote sharing.
Yours is a moot point.
Isn't that my position? You seem to be arguing the same side as me. Shouldn't one of us take the opposite side--I believe that is the customary way to argue. :-)
However, as I was pointing out, there's a limit on your rights, like for how long you get it, what is restrictive and what isn't (fair use etc.) It is not a free ride. Especially since it is a restriction on 1st amendment, the American courts have taken a fairly narrow view on what you can restrict people from doing.
There are restrictions exactly because its a limitation on other people's free speech. And thats my point.
Once you have shared it with someone, you can only control what is done with those copies under certain circumstances. And in that question, the balance decided by society is decidedly not that you have complete say in what is done.