The Double-Dip Mentality

[kandrathe]

I only believe in property.

Now I understand the value of copyrights and believe they serve a good purpose - as long as they are used for the reason they were created.
The purpose of copyrights was originally to promote creativity, it was not about "fairness"..

I feel copyrights and even worse the more recent digital protect laws have become tools for the benifit of large businesses at the expense of ordinary citizens, and I dont think they encourage creativity.

On a side note I think its great keep it illegal for someone to PROFIT by using someone eles intellectual creation with out permision.

Copyright laws should be used to only at a commercial vs commercial level IMO.
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Why would you ever be an author, musician, software publisher, magazine publisher, etc. if the first person to buy your intellectual property could digitize it and offer it to the world for free. 1 copy sold, 200 million copies distributed. An exageration to be sure, but you get the idea. Copyright to me means that the owner of the intellectual property has the right to approve any use of the copies made for any purpose. The law has made it fuzzy by adding "acceptable use" provisions for educational purposes, etc.

Consider the Lamachia case;

A recent case that illustrated this was watched closely by just about everyone in the computer world. It was that of David LaMacchia, an M.I.T. undergraduate who was charged last April with conspiring to distribute millions of dollars' worth of illegally copied commercial software over the Internet. LaMacchia allegedly set up and ran an online bulletin board that allowed anyone who accessed it to copy for free a variety of software programs. Touted as the largest single instance of software piracy ever uncovered, LaMacchia's case was thrown out last December by Massachusetts Federal Judge Richard Stearns, who decided that the senior from Rockville, Maryland, had in fact committed no crime at all. In January U.S. Attorney Donald Stern announced that he would not appeal the decision.

Without updating copyright laws any piece of intellectual property could be published on the internet and downloaded freely, as long as there was no money being made from the endeavor.