Comment by rikroots
3 hours ago
Agreed. While copyright timescales are currently over-extended, copyright was introduced for a very practical reason: "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned"[1].
Personally, I Copyleft my poetry, and make it available to others to use, even for commercial purposes, from 15 years after the poem's publication. I see no reason to keep them locked in a cage long after I'm done with them.
If that was the reason, it should be completely abolished as the exact opposite was achieved.
See for example this article [1]
> unlike neighboring England and France, Germany experienced an unparalleled explosion of knowledge in the 19th century.
> it was none other than copyright law, which was established early in Great Britain, in 1710, that crippled the world of knowledge in the United Kingdom.
>Germany, on the other hand, didn't bother with the concept of copyright for a long time. Prussia, then by far Germany's biggest state, introduced a copyright law in 1837, but Germany's continued division into small states meant that it was hardly possible to enforce the law throughout the empire.
For a more contemporary view look at what became of China by ignoring copyright.
[1]: https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/no-copyright-...
> in 1710, that crippled the world of knowledge in the United Kingdom
How do you account for the industrial revolution under this framing, or the global dominance of the British Empire?
Its really hard to argue that 1710 onwards marked the downfall of Britain, given everything that happened in history after that.