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It seems to be a popular view around here that copyright is bad, and should be abolished. Mainly because large corporations own copyrighted works, and sometimes abuse copyright law.

People who hold that view are IMHO idiots, with no understanding what copyright is, or how it works.

All I can say to them is this: be careful what you wish for.

Original purpose of the copyright was quite useful, giving 18 years to start up the business. Now, world is faster, it should be like 5 years, maybe. Not abolished, but what we have today is bad.
And now for something else; you're unnecessarily rude. They are not idiots, they are ignorants.
@grin that's patents, not copyright.
@grin
Same can be said for the aggregate #fediverse opinion on #capitalism in general. In that case though, we *are* gradually getting more and more of what they wish for, and to paraphrase #HLMencken, we’re getting it good and hard.
This entry was edited (9 months ago)

@mjgardner I think that may be a separate discussion. But yes.

Wrt copyright, the problem is that people have seemingly no idea it applies to them too. And their favourite open source software creator, or webcomic artist, and so on.

Hah. Don't pick on the "people", most institutions and companies have only a vague and often baseless image as well.

@mjgardner

@grin @mjgardner

I write about copyright and how it works as part of my job as a freelance journalist covering the open source community. I see the best fight against copyright abuse coming in education about the topic. If that's picking on the people, then perhaps you should educate yourself on the topic too.