[Wikipedia-l] i hate copyright laws

[Ray Saintonge]

Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>>>There is a quote from the Swedish Academy's announcement of the Nobel
>>>Prize for Steinbeck.  There is a quote from Battle Hymn of The
>>>Republic by Julia Ward Howe, explaining the title of the book.
>>>There's a quote of Woody Guthrie's reaction to the film version of the
>>>book.
>>>
>>"Battle Hymn of the Republic" was published in 1862, and is thus in the 
>>public domain anyway.
>>
>Oops.  I knew it was a Civil War song, so I feel silly.  Well, the
>other two are good examples anyway.
>
No need to feel silly.  It's an all too frequent mistake that any of us 
can make.  Unfortunately, it's the kind of situation that restricts 
intellectual discourse through copyright paranoia.  This specific 
example was easy to check, but others are far more difficult.  The 
citizen who believes himself to be "law-abiding" has a bad habit of 
failing to give himself the benefit of the doubt, or is too willing to 
abide by laws that don't exist.  The prosperous ones do not stand on 
such ceremony.  I often wonder whether we are being too compliant in our 
copyright attitudes.

I was just reading today about the NTP v. RIM case over patent 
infringement, and getting more irritated about these companies that 
accumulate IP rights of one sort or another with no intention of 
producing anything.  Their sole purpose in life is to collect royalties 
from unwitting violators.  I would propose that IP law have a 
"Use-it-or-lose-it" element.  Perhaps a bit like what happens when a 
prospector stakes a mineral claim to a piece of land; here at least, he 
is required to begin developing that mineral claim within a certain time 
or lose it.

Sorry, but copyrights are such an easy subjec for me to rant about.

Ray