Comment by tgv
1 day ago
> life of the author + 70 years ...
So you object to its current implementation, not to the principle itself, which is what I was replying to. I agree it's absurd, especially when the rights can be transferred to corporations, which cannot even create.
> No one is entitled to be a songwriter, movie director, or author; society needs people doing other things too.
Isn't that up to the individual to decide?
> So you object to its current implementation, not to the principle itself
Correct. The greater principle is freedom. Copyright is supposed to be a temporary trade of limitation of freedom in exchange for the progress of art.
> Isn't that up to the individual to decide?
An individual can decide to do or be whatever they want, the entitlement aspect comes into play when we talk about what others are obligated to do in support of that.
Contrived example: As an recording artist, you're probably not going to make money selling CDs because people will copy them. We can say the artist is entitled to do this and make CD burners illegal, and now I lose the ability to back up any type of files using this technology, which reduces my freedom for things not related to copying music CDs. I don't think an artist selling CDs is worth this loss of freedom; I support myself working a 9 to 5 job-doing something other than selling easily copyable CDs, and this is something the artist can do as well.