Re: LMF and abandonned products

billg999@xxxxxxxxxxx (Bill Gunshannon) writes:

Why should my rights to the fruits of my labors ever expire?

Copyright and patent are NOT inherent natural rights, as are the
ownership rights in a physical object which I have made with my own
hands, or crops which I have grown by my own labor. My right to hold
or sell what I have made may be arguably natural, but the privilege
of prohibing other people from copying or using my ideas is a legal
artifact established for a particular public purpose.

Copyright and patent are granted for a limited time[0], so that by
encouraging the efforts of authors and inventors, their works will
eventually enrich the public domain. If the exclusive rights granted
by copyright or patent were permanent, then the works would *never*
enrich the public domain, and the copyright and patent laws would
serve no public purpose.

[0] I realize that the "limited time" provision of the US Constitution
is trampled on in practice, because every time the copyright on
_Steamboat_Willlie_ comes close to expiring, the Disney organization
and its buddies bribe the majority of the members of both houses of
Congress to extend the duration of that and similar copyrights.

--
Chris Jewell chrisj@xxxxxxxxxx PO Box 1396 Gualala CA USA 95445
.

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