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from the preparing-for-talk-like-a-pirate-day? dept.
In The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind Professor of Law James Boyle writes about the history of copyright, patent and trademark laws, and their application. What is the public domain? What are orphan works? Why should somebody own an idea? Boyle makes the case for result-based evaluation of how well the current laws serve us and (re)introduces his idea of information environmentalism.
I think the book makes fascinating reading and since all our contemporary culture and technology is governed by these rules, we should know them and understand how they came to be.
The book is available for download under the CC BY-NC-SA license.
“In this beautifully written and subtly argued book, Boyle has succeeded in resetting that framework, and beginning the work in the next stage of this field. The Public Domain is absolutely crucial to understanding where the debate has been, and where it will go. And Boyle’s work continues to be at the center of that debate.” — Lawrence Lessig.
What say you Soylents? Do you think copyright protection lasts too long? Do you have a problem with patents? Download this book and weigh in for an informed discussion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 17 2014, @03:13AM
Having suggested it several times before myself, I agree with your position.
Before I saw the comment by HiThere, I was also thinking about short terms and escalating values.
My suggestion would be 4 years--less than the original 14 years in the USA, as it's much easier nowadays to produce and distribute works than in 1790--and a tenfold ratcheting each time.
Let's see just how valuable your "intellectual property" actually is to you.
If enacted by a nation, you can bet this sort of thing would immediately go to the top of the list of things to be banned by the international trade agreement pukes.
-- gewg_