is copyright evil? (Re: about warez.at)

[MJ Ray]

Tomasz Wegrzanowski <taw at users.sourceforge.net> writes:

> How could contracts and NDAs bring us DMCAs,
> protocol/fileformat/look&feel patents or CD tax ?  You need two
> sides for a contract, copyrights and patents can affect you even if
> you didn't sign anything.

The above weren't brought about by copyright law (and please let's not
argue about algorithm patents, where I basically agree with you).
They were brought about by stupid legislative mistakes.  

If the DMCA hadn't been based on copyright law, it would have been
based on something else, because there would still have been the
bank roll for it.  The CD-R taxes would have been argued for on the
grounds that the media assisted contract breaches by the copier, the
same as it is currently justified as assisting the licensee to break
copyright law.

> > Copyright isn't going anywhere soon, but if/when it does, we'll only
> > be confronted by the same problem in a different form.
> Well, communism also wasn't 20 years ago.
> At least everyone thought it wasn't.

I believe sovietism (not really communism by that point) was fatally
wounded long before 1981.  If you don't, perhaps we're just reading
different books.  It's not important for this discussion.

> Manmade structures don't last long.
> Copyright will go away sooner or later.

Like I said: then we will just have to work out how to implement our
solution in a different framework.  The essential pressures need to be
balanced in a fairer way.  Someone needs to keep the market free, as
some people will always want to close it down.  I don't think a
revolution is going to be the best way at arriving at a fair solution.

(I studied GAs during my degree, so as you would expect, I'm a great
believer in evolutionary solutions...)
-- 
MJR

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