[PLUG] Abandonware problem and ScummVM...

[Michael M. Moore]

MJang wrote:
> On Wed, 2009-04-22 at 17:10 -0700, Michael M. Moore wrote:
> 
> Dear Michael, 
> 
> I appreciate the education w/r/t copyright history. More after an
> excerpt:
> 
>> The U.S. is party to the [1] Berne Convention and was the most 
>> aggressive lobbyist for [2] TRIPS, which stipulates that copyright terms 
>> must extend to a minimum of 50 years after the death of the author and 
>> that computer programs must be regarded as literary works under 
>> copyright law and receive the same terms of protection.
>>
>> So any serious effort to reform copyright laws internationally has to 
>> start with the U.S., since it was our government that foisted this crap 
>> on the rest of the world.
>>
>> As for hypocrisy, consider that the U.S. refused to recognize copyrights 
>> of non-US citizens until 1891, and only then with [3] caveats.  But now 
>> we seek to force all nations, including developing nations, to recognize 
>> ours, for the benefit of big pharma, Microsoft, Hollywood, and what we 
>> in Portland are fond of calling "the creative class."
>>
>> That's hypocrisy for you.
> 
> So I suppose if the US changed its position one more time, that would be
> flip-flopping....
> 
> But in any case, the current position is in support of capitalism, right
> or wrong. 

I disagree.  The current position is in support of corporatism, not 
capitalism.  Capitalism, as Thomas Jefferson noted, benefits from a 
healthy and vital public domain.  That's why the copyright clause in the 
U.S. Constitution is prefaced "To promote the Progress of Science and 
useful Arts."  Jefferson was against including any such clause in the 
Constitution at all, but James Madison persuaded him that it was "a 
necessary evil."  (His words, not mine.)  Madison wrote, "What was it 
drove our forefathers to this country?  Was it not the ecclesiastical 
corporations and the perpetual monopolies of England and Scotland?"  He 
stressed the limited nature of the Constitution's monopolies and warned 
that they must be "guarded with strictness agst abuse."  The original 
copyright term in the U.S. was 14 years, once renewable.

Substitute "ecclesiastical" with "multinational" in Madison's rhetorical 
question and that's a pretty good summation of where we are today, 
except we have no place to flee.  We fled several hundred years ago, 
only to find ourselves right back where we started.

I would urge you to read Justice Breyer's excellent dissenting opinion 
in [1] Eldred v. Ashcroft for a more comprehensive and eloquent view of 
ways in which our copyright regime has overextended itself.

> In addition, any change to copyright laws would also change the effect
> of the GPL, as it is also a copyright (copyleft) license. And a time
> limit would allow others to bring older GPL code into proprietary
> software.

Authors of GPL'ed software have no more right to impose their world view 
on the progress of humanity for the next 100-150 years than do authors 
of proprietary software.  Personally, I'm quite happy when coders do use 
the GPL, even happier when they use the BSD license, but it doesn't 
elevate them to sainthood or mean that they are entitled to near 
perpetual control over how their work is used and by whom.  Imagine how 
different the computing landscape would be if the past five decades' 
congresscritters had stayed true to Madison's ideology, instead of 
selling us out to Walt Disney and company.  Do you think there would be 
a GPL, or only a handful of somewhat viable alternatives to one thuggish 
Juggernaut of an operating system?  The GPL and similar are attempts to 
work around and survive in a brutal environment that heavily favors 
entrenched interests.  Capitalism thrives on competition; copyright, as 
it has come to be implemented, crushes the possibility of competition.

Michael M.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldred_v._Ashcroft