I think Lessig's argument is that the current set of IP laws doesn't "promote the progress of science" so therefore they are NOT explicitly called for in the Constitution.

I have been meeting weekly with some Linux guys and am slowly being converted to the view that, in fact, it can pay a code developer to give away his product.

But I haven't yet got to the point where I believe Joe can take John's product, even if Joe is certain that it will be good for John.

Harry:

If it pays they'll do it, no?

There is precedence: InstaPundit's wife made her book available as a free PDF and sales of the book went up! Don't ask me for an explanation, it's like some kind of market magic.

Do what? Steal?

They'll do that even if it doesn't pay.

If you mean, if it pays to give it away, owners will give it away, the answer -- according to my argumentative friends -- has been no.

They think the dinosaurs are stupid. Could be right.

So the dinosaurs will become extinct and whatever evolves will give it away if it pays, no?

"...limited times..."

Isn't there enough penumbra and emanations there for even a Mickey Mouse to see?

Current copyright and patent law are becoming an impediment to advancement. The speed at which new ideas can be integrated is slowed by the absurd 17 year monopoly.

Both writing, art, music and inventions should be limited to 2 years monopoly. Then it should be public domain.

I can actually make a great case for this, but it would take 30 -40 pages. For a start google a recent Intellectual property article in Forbes.

It has to change.

Make any case at all. Why should Robert Caro's next volume of his LBJ bio, which he's taken decades to write, be public domain after two years?

You know, OJ, given that you excerpt large sections or even most of many copyrighted articles everyday in your blog, I'd say you're on shaky ground when trying to make a convincing argument for strong copyright and intellectual property laws. :-)

Also, you have to look at the overall creativity, productivity, and benefit. To present one or even a thousand examples of where copyright provides overall benefit doesn't imply in any way that our current set of IP laws are optimal or even close to beneficial overall.

One of the main purposes of establishing a copyright for limited times was to prevent a hereditary sinecure on the ownership of literary works.

But what has happened is that each time Mickey Mouse's copyright nears expiration, Disney pushes Congress to pass a bill to boost copyrights up another 15-20 years. The last two examples being the Copyright Act of 1976 and the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998. The latter extends copyrights to the life of the author plus 70 years (and 95 years for corporate ownership). Mickey Mouse is now safe until 2015.

Copyright was meant to give an author a chance to earn reasonable compensation for his during his lifetime. The shenanigans with perpetual copyright extensions have gutted the original intent of the founding fathers.

Bret:

Rule #5 is never most:

"(5) Try--though I'm bad about this myself--to only quote about three paragraphs, or no more than a third, of any story you blog. We want folks to go read it at the site that owns it. But if you need to use more to make the excerpt make sense, no problem."

we also always provide a link and never (almost never?) post content that folks charge for--an example being Wall Street Journal stories.

But blogs are illustrative. After some initial resistance editors and authors pretty quickly realized that blogs were too minor to steal their audience, but reasonably effective at driving some readers their way. So we have a number of editors and authors who write to us asking us to post their stuff precisely because people seeing it here will go there.

If it pays folks will be willing to forego strict copyright protection.

Gideon:

Mickey is the very basis of their business. Sure, the Steamboat Willie films should be out from under copyright protection, but why Mickey himself?

Hard to believe that stealing CD tracks for personal use enhances the overall economy.

I hope that my Wednesday group gets something together on their blog that I can then ask Orrin to link up.

Their discussion is way better than what's here, but too long to put in a post, and, besides, I'm not sure I understand all the nuances yet.

Harry:

All of the studios I've seen show that downloading of songs does indeed drive the popularity and sales of groups. That's why many make tracks available on their own sites.

Why not start your own blog and stop being a troll here?