Comment by PrismCrystal
3 days ago
I have never been sympathetic to the notion that copyright has just been extended too long. Copyright itself is the problem. For example, for an academic from a poor region trying to keep up with publications in his field, even the short length of copyright set out by the American Founding Fathers, is too long.
It predates America:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright#History
Obviously. But HN is American-dominated, and the Copyright Clause in the Constitution and the original length of 14 years, are what most people are likely to think of when it is mentioned that copyright used to be a short monopoly to spur the arts and sciences. In modern scholarship, where progress is continual and scholars hail from countries that have differing degrees of access to paid resources, any monopoly for any length of time is harmful.