[pp.int.general] An answer to RMS' critique of the PP.SE political programme

[Ed Galligan]

While the points raised by RMS may be interesting enough, I don't really
think his concerns are as pressing as they are made out to be. His post
seems to assume the immediate application of PP's proposals to todays
systems and business models, while the way works are sold/distributed
remains at a status quo.

Anyone who things a reduction in copyright duration would happen overnight
is kidding themselves. The FSF has been working for a little over 20 years
now, a relatively short time, and the change in the software marketplace has
been truly astounding. There was no point where a switch was flicked and
everyone who is today involved in some way with free software changed their
respective outlooks and/or business models.

Let's not forget the actual motivation behind reducing copyright duration -
to think that radical change in how indivuals/organisations that currently
hold copyrights do business and distribute their content will not occur as a
gradual result of any inroads we make is short sighted, and yet the
arguments made by RMS are not being applied to a hypothetical future way of
doing things, but to todays way, as if it will remain static.

Edison Carter makes the most valid points in this thread sofar, in the very
first reply. RMS claims that a shorter copyright term will result in less
editable content being distributed, but in all likelihood those choosing to
reduce the distribution of such editable content will see their ability to
compete similarly reduced.

On Mon, Dec 7, 2009 at 9:53 AM, Sven Clement <sven.clement at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Dec 7, 2009 at 2:11 AM, Edison Carter <
> the.real.edison.carter at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> Varable length copyright is not something I will ever agree with. I do not
>> care if it's based on media type, the nature of the content or it's
>> perceived usefulness, copyright held by a person vs. copyright held by a
>> corporation, or the licence used. I very strongly believe that all copyright
>> should expire a uniform number of years after the creation of a work. This
>> would make it so much easier to be sure that a work is no longer in
>> copyright before being able to make use of it in a commercial way. Otherwise
>> we have the problem of works still being locked away long beyond their
>> copyright because even though the copyright has expired, nobody can be sure
>> of it.
>>
>
> Thinking about this topic for quite a while, I realized that no solution
> will be 100% perfect, I do see the problem that if software is licensed as
> open source and the copyright expires that then someone could use the
> software under a closed source license for the next X years. But still the
> software would be available in the version that was available before the
> copyright expired.
>
> Thus I came to the conclusion, that an uniform expiration date for all
> works should be introduced, the length should be subject to further
> discussions with experts in the industry to guarantee, that a creator would
> not loose more than 20% in average.
>
> To illustrate:
> We know that most books are sold in the 2 years after the publication, so
> if we would limit the copyright to 5 years a book author would not loose
> much money.
> Software is normally considered old after 5 yrs so that there would be no
> problem neither, movies and music idem, so we should first and foremost try
> to find a consensus, if we want variable or fixed length copyright and after
> that we should discuss the exact terms with experts knowing how the
> industries work.
>
> Sven
>
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