Rethinking Copyright and IP
Seeing such a power-giving bill like SOPA and NDAA being voted on around the same time (and with an 85% disapproval rating of Congress) made me ask "Maybe Congress is wrong thinking up these bills." Ninety-three senators deserve no reelection for NDAA, but as for SOPA, I asked why the government needs to protect things like IP with so much force.
Is it moral to shut down sites like Youtube or Twitter because some companies are losing money from copyright infringement?
Infringing what? Copyright is a monopoly because only the company or person holding it can use the ideas, and, these days, it is indeed unlawful to infringe on copyright. I cannot answer the question until I ask why copyright can last one hundred years. Indeed why a hundred? How about a thousand?
Nah, imagine a single chef having copyright to a book of recipes for a hundred years. Only he can cook it in that time, or until his death, I think. Now think of all the others wanting copyright on their own recipes, and then see the lawsuits between the chefs as they fight for their monopolies. What would you, the foodie, get from all that? Likely a lot less than we have now because a chef's business can't afford to fight many lawsuits every time a new meal is added on the menu, or even pay the royalties.
This is something for people here to think about. . . You may even want the entire elimination of copyright and IP. Or prefer something less so.
My idea for that would be to divide copyright's max time by a hundred to make copyright's term to be one year. One year to get the most money out of a music record before it goes to public domain (and it'll likely still make money after one year anyway). And all things protected by IP have one year before they are public domain. Plus you get more focused enforcement since ninety-nine years of copyrighted materials are no longer bothered with.
But of course, I recommend that people start questioning IP completely. That means that you must ask if ideas, like Pokemon, can be owned by anybody. Also, if major limiting of copyright would improve production. Again, there must be some reaction from people due to SOPA being proposed.
I think someone may ask, but I'll say it now: Services like Xbox Live would not be free, nor would buying a seat in a movie place, or downloading from Netflix, or downloading off a pirate site (side effects of viruses don't go away). Can't expect a book to be free either, it has to be printed. And servers have limited bandwidth that costs money to maintain.
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