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Reader Voices: Copyright Duration

By Ed Foster, Section The Gripelog
Posted on Fri Oct 20, 2006 at 12:29:54 AM PDT

How long should copyrights last? Most of my readers seem to think that today's rules - Congress has stretched them out to the lifetime of the author plus 70 years or 95 years for works-for-hire -- are excessive. But there is much less agreement over what would be a fair term for copyright duration.

A recent story about copyright abuses led one reader to muse on why there is such widespread disrespect for copyright law. "It might have something to do with the fact that it has very little to do with 'progress of science and useful arts' these days, and a whole lot more to do with greedy corporations' strategies for lining their own pockets with as little work, especially actual innovation, as possible," the reader wrote. "At bare minimum, copyright terms need to be reined in to something sane, like two years or so. If copyright was needed as per the theory, the current system would produce a lot of 'work until you produce a hit and then promptly retire,' which doesn't actually seem to happen! The other major reform short of outright abolishment would be to make rights non-transferable. While an author could authorize others to distribute copies etc. (or open source would die), he or she could not give up that ability except by placing the work into the public domain. If rights were always held by the individual creator and never by virtually-immortal greedy corporations, things might be different."

That comment led several to protest. "It's very easy to sit there and call us all greedheads without bothering to think about anything other than you own desire and lack of funds," another reader wrote. "The fact of the matter is the vast majority of creative folks never get rich, but they make a modest living by creating LOTS of works that each sell a little over a long span of time. If we do as you propose and limit it to two years, for most of us that's giving away 80% of the revenue. Your points are all very pure and idealistic, but I'd recommend you try looking at the world from the point of view of us who -- if we can't make our modest livings creating stuff -- will be reduced to creating hamburgers at McDonalds because we won't be able to eat or put a roof over our heads otherwise."

Others thought a more modest rollback of the copyright term is in order. "The current term of copyright is obscenely long -- why should your great-grandchildren get royalties on something you created? One of the sanest suggestions I have heard came from Orson Scott Card, someone who makes his living as a writer, who suggests the longer of 100 years or lifetime of the author plus 20 years. On the other hand, since greedy publishers are anxious to force independent writers to perjure themselves by declaring their creations works-for-hire, the copyright on works for hire would be twenty years, not renewable. My own opinion is the pre-1976 law -- 28 years, renewable for another 28 -- struck a balance between giving the author long enough to realize a good return on his/her investment of time and energy and accumulating a healthy public domain."

"The only reason the founding fathers agreed to allow copyright to exist was because they thought it would enrich the public domain," another reader wrote. "If a copyright holder is allowed to capture 100% of the revenue from his creation that leaves 0% for the public domain and defeats the purpose of granting the monopoly. Is two years a good length of time? For software code it might be too long. For movies it seems far too short. The original legislation that enacted the copyright and patent clauses in the Constitution set a duration of 14 years. Given the uninhibited power grabs on the part of well-heeled copyright holders I think it would be good to return to this duration for copyrights at least. Software patents should all be voided since their logical foundations are dubious at best. Patents work fairly well for the pharmaceutical industry."

Another reader wants the duration reduced even further. "I'm not sure even two years are needed -- try zero, perhaps. Modern Internet-based distribution methods mean that you can open source something and it will become widely distributed or not on a meritocratic basis, with the costs of reproduction and distribution also being distributed. So one use for copyright, to get investment in the publishing and distribution infrastructure, is kaput. The other also seems to be, given that 'copylefted' works are proliferating in many domains. It seems there's no shortage of creative output even from those who cannot expect to be remunerated by licensing exclusive rights; they either get their money in other ways that copyright isn't needed for, or they don't care about the money, on an individual basis."

What do you think would the right duration for copyrights? Post your comments about this column below or write me directly at Foster@gripe2ed.com.

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Reader Voices: Copyright Duration | 79 comments (79 topical) | Post A Comment

How long?[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#1)
by Jarulf on Fri Oct 20, 2006 at 03:44:07 AM PDT

Well, for one, it should be untied to the death of anyone. It should be a fixed number of years. WHy the death of the author should ever be of interest is beyoned me. If for no other reason than making it very hard to know when the copyright expire.

Exact ammount of years? Well, ahrd to say, long enough to make it a good enough incentive to get work created (or if one prefer, for the progress of science and art or whatever one can think of). It doesn't mean it has to be long enough so that each and every work has to become a financially success though. Actually, it should not be tied at all to how much money you make out of it or not.

>The fact of the matter is the vast majority of
>creative folks never get rich, but they make a
>modest living by creating LOTS of works that
>each sell a little over a long span of time. If
>we do as you propose and limit it to two years,
>for most of us that's giving away 80% of the
>revenue.

The point is not to make creators rich. You might as well turn it arround and claim that in many cases a very short investment in time, can make a person to simply sit back and earn a tremendous ammount of money for the rest of his life, plus for his children, and their children and so on. Is THAT good?

OK, so some works generate most of their money after a very long time only, what does that have to do with anything? Would anyone creating art today seriously consider not making it if they knoew that they might no longer have the possibility to make money on it 60 year from now? 100 years? (creating something at the age of 20 can very well lead to far more than 100 years of copyright). I doubt it. For the progress it is probably far better to allow many works lose their copyright and thus be available for others to use and build new work on would be far better. Perhaps one would actually get better work if the creator actually had to consider if the work is good enough to generate for example money quicker. After all, most work generaye enough money far, far quicker than life plus 70 years.

After all, how can one make a living anyway if you don't get money untill 10, 20 or 50 years into the future? And you are not even sure of it?

From what I see though, most works tend to give most of their revenue or income in the first few years (a bit depending on type of work).

>One of the sanest suggestions I have heard came
>from Orson Scott Card, someone who makes his
>living as a writer, who suggests the longer of
>100 years or lifetime of the author plus 20
>years.

Why involve lifetime at all? What good does it make and how does it make more or better work or progress to take place? In addition, such a situation becomes a hoplessly complex situation of trying to find out if a work is under copyright, you have to know when it was created, when the author died and compare.

>My own opinion is the pre-1976 law -- 28 years,
>renewable for another 28

Such a system requires registration and keeping track somehow centrally for all works. In addition, how do you apply it on an internationally level? Do you have to apply in each country? Is it automatically made by the ones keeping the register? WHen wanting to know the copyright status of a work, do you have to go to each possible country in the world to see if it is registered and the status of it? And so on.

In my opinion, a single fixed time based on the creation of the work would be far easier in most aspects than both the current and many proposed mixed or relative system with extensions and such.

SO do I have my own idea for duration? No, not really, I have not though about it thoroghly enough, nor do I have sufficient information to make a good sugestion (although it seems for sure that life plus 70 is far to long). If I am to pick something out of mostly thin air, I would say that somewere between 2 and 15 years seems a reasonable incentive for the creation of enough work and progress.

[ Reply to This ]

Copyright Duration[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#24)
by Anonymous User on Tue Oct 24, 2006 at 02:05:49 PM PDT

Without going through every post, I wonder how many readers realize that the impetus behind the current length of copyright was the late Rep. Salvatore ("Sonny") Bono (R-California). He was rather appalled by the number of musicians (composers, specifically) who had died penniless because they outlived their copyrights, and extending the term of copyright seemed only fair, coming as he did from that perspective. Of course, extending copyright for one type of protected work, extended it for all, which is why we're discussing copyrights on computer software.

The original terms, one term of 28 years with one renewal of 28 years, struck me as sufficient, so long as they applied to the actual creator of the work. And the reason a lot of composers died penniless was either that they let the copyright lapse after one term or, more probably, they accepted rather onerous terms from their publishers just to get their songs into the public's hands (composers, like most artists, not being known for their legal prowess). Now, the "work made for hire" clause is something I, as an individual composer, have always considered suspect -- after all, why should someone else make a fortune off my labor and creativity? -- but it's there. And when the work is created by a collection of people who are employed by a firm (the usual MO for software these days, especially large software like OSes and productivity suites), one can argue that there would be no collection of people if not for the firm paying their salaries, so that firm should receive something from their labors. But it was never the intention of the original law to lock creative works away in perpetuity. I think a reversion to the original terms may be in order.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Sorry, that had nothing to do with it[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#28)
by Reziac on Tue Oct 24, 2006 at 04:47:51 PM PDT

Musicians didn't die penniless because they outlived their copyrights. They died penniless because the RIAA cartel bilked them out of it with usorious contracts that would have been illegal in any other industry:

http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

Copyright was extended because Disney wanted it and lobbied until they got it -- to my understanding, primarily to prevent the oldest Mickey films (which were pornographic) from falling into the public domain and ruining Disney's wholesome family-fare image.

.

~REZ~
[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Whoa[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#51)
by Anonymous User on Sun Oct 29, 2006 at 05:57:23 PM PDT

> the oldest Mickey films (which were pornographic)

Cite? (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence)

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Subject[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#30)
by Jarulf on Wed Oct 25, 2006 at 05:15:49 AM PDT

> And the reason a lot of composers died
>penniless was either that they let the copyright
>lapse after one term or, more probably, they
>accepted rather onerous terms from their
>publishers just to get their songs into the
>public's hands (composers, like most artists,
>not being known for their legal prowess).

Huh? Seems to me that a very big reason seems to be that they didn't do anything new for a heck of a lot of years before dieing. Same applies to all people. If I don't work for the last 28 or 56 (or even 10, 5 or less) years of my life, I would probably die penniless as well.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

6666666666666666[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#103)
by Anonymous User on Sat Aug 16, 2008 at 06:50:53 AM PDT

Great Article, i agreee with you[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#104)
by Anonymous User on Mon Sep 01, 2008 at 10:43:56 PM PDT

dis j'ai jamais vu de poisson sans ouies........et avec une forme pareille.......Internet Marketing 迷你倉護膚 .

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Duration[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#2)
by Anonymous User on Fri Oct 20, 2006 at 06:22:26 AM PDT

The creative forces have been pushing a theory that IP is like real property. With real property, someone typically purchases raw materials and creates a physical instance. That instance can be owned forever.

IP is not the same. First, the raw material are taken from the public. Their creative works build on the creative works of those who came before them. I would not mind the longer timeframes if the creators had to pay an ongoing tax for every reference to public domain material.

An idea is also different from real property in that it does not have an intrinsic cost of production. I may see how my neighbor has arranged their flowers and determine he had a good idea. If I copy some of his creative aspects, I have not taken anything from his yard, I have only copied. Copying is not the same as taking (stealing). The Industry keeps trying to convince everyone that it is the same but it really is not.

Another example is a hot dog cart on a corner. The first person to have this idea may think that it is unfair that someone else sets up a cart on the other corner. The new guy has stolen the idea to sell hot dogs from a cart. In reality the idea of selling from a cart dates back thousands of years. Thus who is the real 'thief'.

As for duration. the 14/14 seemed to work well for a long time. I think the first 14 should be free and require no action on the part of the creator. The second 14 should require registration and a small fee ($10 or less) and cover the cost of creating a searchable database to allow people to check to see that they don't infringe and find out how to contact the creator.

I would not have a problem with allowing the original creator to renew for 2 additional 14 year periods by paying a small admin fee ($5) If it isn't worth $5 and 5 minutes, to renew, it is ready for the public domain.

[ Reply to This ]

Tax[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#7)
by Anonymous User on Fri Oct 20, 2006 at 11:30:34 AM PDT

"IP is not the same. First, the raw material are taken from the public. Their creative works build on the creative works of those who came before them. I would not mind the longer timeframes if the creators had to pay an ongoing tax for every reference to public domain material."

The "tax" is (or used to be) that your own work was ploughed back into the public domain after a while...

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Lost works[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#3)
by talmy on Fri Oct 20, 2006 at 07:14:50 AM PDT

While preserving copyrights for famous works in effective perpetuity is one matter for debate, the long copyright terms have IMHO a far more serious effect in that they will cause the loss of far larger number of average works. Once a book (for instance) goes out of print it is likely to be forgotten. If we have to wait 100 or more years after it goes out of print for it to lose its copyright, what's the chance of a future Project Gutenberg recovering it? Keep the maximum copyright term as long as the author (or his heirs) want, but make it renewable every 10 years at a hefty cost, say $10,000, so that works that are no longer profitable will fall into the public domain. Note that this technique works for patents, which now require maintenance fees be paid under threat of loss of patent.

[ Reply to This ]

Graduated System[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#4)
by Anonymous User on Fri Oct 20, 2006 at 07:51:26 AM PDT

How about a graduated system. The first ten years are free + whatever filing cost or processing costs there are to register the work.

The Second ten years cost $10,000 and then doubles every 10 years. So years 30 thru 39 would cost $20K. Years 40 thru 49 would cost $40K. etc...

After 100 years if Disney wants to copyright Mickey Mouse for another 10, it costs them millions of dollars. It would become an ROI decision at that point, but if they had to pony up $2.5MM that would 'reimburse' the public for the monopoly.

I am not against people making money off their work, but the virtual perpetual monopoly on things the owners aren't even using anymore is annoying.

[ Reply to This ]

Seven Year Copyright[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#5)
by srynas on Fri Oct 20, 2006 at 08:49:05 AM PDT

To answer the question, seven years for a copyright. The purpose of copyright to promote the progress of society through a limited term monopoly. Obviously, the word "limited" is subject to much interpretation and any time period, such as seven years, is arbitrary.

The current law however is an abomination and goes counter to free market concepts by essentially giving a corporations monopoly rights.

I have one unresolved issue, computer software. For computer software, the "rights" of that software should expire either after five years or when the product is no longer supported by the vendor, whichever comes first. Once a vendor who owns a software product drops support, that software should enter the public domain.

The reason for advocating this position is that if your software "breaks" and the vendor refuses to support the product, the hope would be that users would form a forum to support the product and possibly post fixes. If a vendor refuses to take care of "broken" programs, the vendor should not be entitled to a revenue stream.

[ Reply to This ]

Source code[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#8)
by Anonymous User on Fri Oct 20, 2006 at 11:38:24 AM PDT

"The reason for advocating this position is that if your software "breaks" and the vendor refuses to support the product, the hope would be that users would form a forum to support the product and possibly post fixes. If a vendor refuses to take care of "broken" programs, the vendor should not be entitled to a revenue stream."

Right on. Let's throw in that the source code must be escrowed to get criminal copyright protection. This source code is released into the public domain when the copyright lapses (whether after five years or through nonsupport).

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Software copyright? Who needs it?[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#11)
by Anonymous User on Fri Oct 20, 2006 at 12:53:17 PM PDT

Or, we could dump copyright entirely, at least for software. It's not like software royalties pay struggling young artists or anything. 90% of the people writing code are hired to make/fix something by someone else who wants it done for their own use, rather than by a commercial software vendor; abolishing software copyright entirely would have no effect on these guys. As it is, more such people are paid to fix/maintain Unix servers and open source than commercial stuff anyway -- mainly because it's kind of hard to maintain closed source if you're not the original vendor. Arguably, there'd be more work for these coders this way! (On the other hand, fixes by one would spread, rather than potentially having to be done at someone's expense over and over again separately, but is such wasteful duplication really what we want?)

That leaves big software vendors. The actual coders and designers there are salaried rank-and-file employees. They don't see a dime of copyright royalties. Their rotund, three-piece-suited bosses, of course, line their pockets and laugh all the way to the bank. Of course, arguably the commercial software vendors would all implode without copyright, but is that really such a bad thing? Let's see what they do for us:

They bring us software, like Windows and Office. So does the FSF and other loosely-knit groups, and a lot cheaper, with things like Linux and OpenOffice.
They send their BSA goons around to audit everyone in sight. Probably quite a drain on the economy.
They cover up/deny security bugs, provide shoddy (often pay) support, and so forth. Most run of the mill users are better off getting support from the community anyway.
They collude and connive with the RIAA to limit what we can do with our machines, software, and data (e.g. "trusted computing", DRM).

OK. I vote we get rid of 'em.

The market for providing paid, professional software support, particularly to big business consumers, won't go away anyway. Companies that used to buy MS "Software Assurance" will still need not only software, but maintenance and assurance that it's kept working, so they'll buy service contracts. They will pay less up front for the software itself and they might start to miss the BSA goons when they quit visiting Tuesdays and alternate Thursdays, but oh well. :)

Verdict: dropping software copyright won't harm innovation, reduce the available space of products, reduce the money to be had writing code or supporting software (big business w/support contracts is the main bread and butter of the Microsofts of the world as things stand), or do much else bad.

It will maybe improve software, lower prices for consumers (without worsening the availability of software they can use, or the support they can get), reduce the number of big bullies "auditing" people and generally throwing their weight around as if they were the government, reduce the amount of lobbying for horrible IP laws, reduce the amount of actual horrible IP laws, and strike a blow against DRM and "trusted computing" and in favor of individuals and system administrators still having root access to their own machines.

OK then.

Down with software copyright!

http://www.againstmonopoly.org/
http://www.questioncopyright.org/

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Hmm[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#18)
by Anonymous User on Tue Oct 24, 2006 at 12:56:27 AM PDT

I see your point. It's clear to me from various lines of reasoning that at bare minimum we need compulsory licensing of software.

Want to know why Windows is so dominant? Ask why it's so hard to buy a new computer without Windows on it, or with Linux. Nearly all computers for sale in major (i.e. conveniently nearby and reasonably priced, for the vast majority of consumers) shops are Windows PCs -- except for the few with the "other" proprietary OS and that silly apple logo, of course. ;)

(Cue assorted gibbering loons and the small clump of rabid Mac fanbois that have attached themselves to the gripelog. Actually, I suspect that they are one and the same, and that there's about three of them, replying to themselves and each other to multiply their apparent numbers. :))

Of course you can get a computer with Linux on it, in three equally dubious ways. The U-Assemble-It route is obviously too daunting for anyone but diehard techies, and some of those too. And you'd better know what you're doing. Open the case and you void the (weak, often hard-to-enforce) warranty. Go further and there presumably is no warranty, beyond whatever the individual parts have. Less daunting but financially questionable is paying for a copy of Windows you don't intend to use. Finally, there's the both-hands-and-a-map approach: locating a hole in the wall store in a major city and traveling all the way there to get a certified Windows-free PC that isn't "some assembly required". At current fuel prices and the current stats on the rarity of such stores, and the often inflated prices at these same stores, this is likely to be financially challenging as well, compared to the ideal (buy a cheap blank clone PC at Future Shop and insert Linux CD). Neverminding that finding a linux CD isn't that easy either, unless you have connections. Making one yourself requires a) broadband and b) a pre-existing computer (and therefore c) Windows (or MacOS), unless you can solve the chicken-and-egg problem).

How did this situation come to be, where there are defacto only two operating systems available readily to new computer buyers, and only one of them is either affordable or widely supported? (Windows shrink-wrapped is expensive, mind you, but the hardware MacOS insists on not running without is even more expensive and OEM Windows as part of the price of a new PC is cheaper than shrink-wrapped Windows.)

Why, that's simple. MS has bribed and blackmailed all major computer sellers. They exploit that little "all rights reserved" thing to the hilt. They can actually permit one entity to copy/distribute Windows at a given price and completely forbid another one to at any price or insist on a hugely inflated price, under copyright law, you know. So, since most people do want PCs with Windows preinstalled (including most would-be Linux users, who'd want a dual-boot system rather than a completely alien, pure-Linux one), the OEMs have to appease Microsoft's every whim or else be denied the ability to sell those either a) at all or at least b) at affordable prices without c) going bankrupt or even d) being sued or going to jail.

If you noticed that all of this M$ bullying (and in fact a lot of M$ bullying, and a lot of IP bullying in general) hinges on M$ being able to discriminate and give different distributors different terms for permission to copy Windows, you deserve a prize. (A free copy of the Linux distro of your choice. Media or combination of broadband and download URL sold separately. :))

Compulsory licensing would fix that, by forcing M$ to charge one fixed price per copy of Windows and then let anybody make and distribute copies, so long as M$ got at least that much for each copy (or, with their explicit permission, less or nothing). This still wouldn't prevent M$ offering favorable deals to preferred dealers, but it would limit how far "out in the cold" they could leave ones that did things Billy boy didn't like, such as "grouse about product activation", "testify against M$", or "even think about touching open source with a ten foot pole".

(They could still offer a discount to "well-behaved" OEMs; also keep OEM Windows cheaper, even from "badly-behaved" OEMs, by more explicitly making "OEM Windows" and shrink-wrapped Windows separate (but interoperable) products that differ slightly but enough to be legally different copyrighted works (say, by swapping the red and green panes in the windows logo in the OEM version's installer, where users never even see the difference), then setting a different price on each.)

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Not all software publishers are fatcats[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#19)
by Anonymous User on Tue Oct 24, 2006 at 10:17:37 AM PDT

As an independent software developer who is dependent for a modest middle-class living on copyright, I strenuously disagree with your wildly false picture of development. I've spent most of the past year working on a new edition of the software I sell. Without copyright, there's no way I'd be able to get a return on the time I invest. There are thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, of small businesses like mine that develop niche software. We're not fatcats, but we are meeting needs. We wouldn't be able to do it if we could only charge for support (once someone buys my software, over half the time I never hear from them again, because the software meets their needs, is well documented, and isn't buggy).

Standardized software allows companies and individuals to save a lot of time and money over reinventing the wheel. Whether it's virus protection, word processing, accounting, investment portfolio management, games, or any of the thousands of other types of software out there, there are many, many people who are willing to pay money to get a reliable product that will do what they need (or want). Are some of these also available in open-source or freeware versions? Sure, and some people will decide that fits their needs fine, for some or all of the software they want. I personally purchase some software and use open-source & freeware for other things. But there are many needs that open-source is never going to meet, and those of us who are willing to put serious time, effort, and money into meeting those needs deserve a return on our investment. Just because someone else is willing to give away their time doesn't mean I should be required to give away mine.

And if you don't think the "rank and file employees" of major software vendors "see a dime of copyright royalties," you're betraying your utter ignorance of business and economics. No, they don't get a per-sale share of profits, but how do you think their salaries would be paid for if the company weren't able to charge for its software?

I wouldn't have a problem with a shorter copyright life on software than on books, paintings, and music. As some others have said, I think the old 28 years, plus option to renew for 28 more, was a fair balance between the creator's and the public's interest. For software, how about half that (both initial term and renewal)? I agree, however, with those who consider software patents an abomination that should be eliminated.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Response[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#23)
by Anonymous User on Tue Oct 24, 2006 at 11:34:18 AM PDT

"And if you don't think the "rank and file employees" of major software vendors "see a dime of copyright royalties," you're betraying your utter ignorance of business and economics. No, they don't get a per-sale share of profits, but how do you think their salaries would be paid for if the company weren't able to charge for its software?"

Perhaps you didn't read the earlier article in full? He said the company selling maintenance subscriptions to bigger customers would pay their salaries.

What you yourself do looks like it would be covered under either working for the user directly, or various business models where those who need something eclectic collectively pool the money to finance its development and hire someone to create it. Pledge-drive mechanisms and others have been proposed for this sort of thing. Not unlike a few neighbors chipping money together to pay to have a pool put in one's spacious yard, on the agreement that they'll all be granted access. Expensive things like that are sometimes done that way. And sometimes thrown open to half the neighborhood, if the capacity is there.

If you often get eclectic feature requests or similar, your customers might well buy a maintenance plan, given that they end up paying a similar amount to what they pay now simply for a copy. Ultimately, that is what they're actually paying for.

Worst case, you'd have to switch to coder-for-hire or similar as your business model. Buggy whip manufacturers had it far, far worse after the Model T came out.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Too late[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#37)
by Anonymous User on Wed Oct 25, 2006 at 06:18:35 PM PDT

It's already happening.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20061025/143042.shtml

The salient passage is:

"The bigger theme to note is that in the software industry, the business models of closed and open source companies are converging. The software itself, which has no marginal cost, is getting cheaper and cheaper, while the money is made on the service and support deals that come along with it."

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Easy for you to say[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#39)
by Anonymous User on Thu Oct 26, 2006 at 05:09:52 AM PDT

I'm not interested in working for a single user directly, and a single user probably wouldn't be excited about paying the cost for development of the software. The whole reason companies (and individuals) will buy software is so they don't have to fund the full development of something; they accept possible limitations because the cost becomes manageable. The development costs for, say, typical small business management software (I'm thinking of the specialized programs written for dry cleaners or landscapers, for instance) probably exceed the total annual revenue of most of their clients. And the stores can't wait two years for the package to be written before they open; they need it NOW, and they'll get something else and be done with it. I'm willing to put in the effort because I plan to sell the software to a substantial number of customers; I'm taking the risk, so why should anyone who walks by gain all the rewards?

Cobbling together a consortium is easier said than done; even now I'm trying to figure out how to pay for the advertising I'll need to do to get the word out about my software, and in large part I expect to pay for that through the sales that I make. If I have to advertise just to find people to fund the development, where's that money going to come from? And why should people go with an unknown (me) and a package that doesn't yet exist if there's already something known on the market? I may have great ideas for something better, but "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" is hard to fight against.

Constitutionally, the purpose of copyright is "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." I think the Founders had the right idea; without software copyright, the "useful Arts" will be hampered. Will software still be developed? Of course; and songs were written before copyright existed as well. But removal of copyright will inhibit the progress of the arts, both practical and beautiful, because many people like me will be unable, or less able, to engage in such work.

By contrast, I believe software and business process patents inhibit progress, and on that basis should be eliminated.

But the fundamental point of my original post was that the claim that software publishers are all fatcats and the world would be far better off without them is simply false. And your "we know what's the best way for you to earn your living" attitude is antithetical to liberty. Copyright is intended to strike a balance between various interests. I think the current extension of rights nearly into infinity has abused the balance, but the solution is not to push the pendulum to the other extreme.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Copyright?[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#42)
by Anonymous User on Thu Oct 26, 2006 at 03:00:21 PM PDT

"Constitutionally, the purpose of copyright is "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.""

At last, someone in the pro-copyright camp that actually knows something.

Okay, let's see -- first of all, you'll notice that it is explicitly about the art, not the artist. Poor starving or otherwise. If it gets produced anyway, if on different economic models, why is copyright needed in that sphere?

"I think the Founders had the right idea; without software copyright, the "useful Arts" will be hampered. Will software still be developed? Of course; and songs were written before copyright existed as well. But removal of copyright will inhibit the progress of the arts, both practical and beautiful, because many people like me will be unable, or less able, to engage in such work."

Care to try to prove that? The amount of art (both practical and beautiful) produced under "copyleft" these days strongly suggests that no such "inhibition" will occur. Before the Internet provided a cheap, meritocratic distribution and viral-marketing platform, things may well have been different, but now?

"By contrast, I believe software and business process patents inhibit progress, and on that basis should be eliminated."

One point on which we agree.

"But the fundamental point of my original post was that the claim that software publishers are all fatcats and the world would be far better off without them is simply false."

Large software vendors like Microsoft do the world a favor? Since when? Smaller vendors are probably more able to adapt with new business models. How would you advertise? How about the Internet. There must be forums where people who use the sort of software you write gather. Post there telling them about your ideas and that you can make something for them if they pledge some cash. You don't deliver, they don't pay. (We need trustworthy, cheap escrow services for this in future though, to hold the cash but reduce the risk that someone will just pocket it and run away. Otherwise, the artist could pocket the cash and run if paid in advance, and if not, the customers could withhold the cash even if the artist produced. Another model is to develop it and be paid incrementally, payments contingent on evidence of progress. Betas and alphas of software with partial but growing functionality and diminishing bugs, say. And then there's the business model of giving away the software and selling the support services.)

"And your "we know what's the best way for you to earn your living" attitude is antithetical to liberty."

In my opinion, state-enforced monopolies and the associated restraints of trade and infringements on freedom of transaction (and sometimes speech!) are antithetical to liberty.

Perhaps we shall never agree on these points.

"Copyright is intended to strike a balance between various interests. I think the current extension of rights nearly into infinity has abused the balance, but the solution is not to push the pendulum to the other extreme."

Prove it. I have tried my darndest and scratched my head, but all of the evidence I have seen indicates that, in the presence of current consumer-grade production and distribution capabilities (particularly the Internet), it simply isn't true. At this point, I suspect that "progress of science and the useful arts" is barrelling forward despite, not because of, so-called "IP" law. And unless you're a luddite, you should support removing that one stuck brake. (The other brakes, the ethical checks on misuse of experimental subjects and doomsday devices, need installing quickly; most of them are missing still and nanotech is rapidly coming to fruition.)

Also, a couple links. I suggest reading the basic materials here with an open mind.

http://www.againstmonopoly.org/
http://www.questioncopyright.org/

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Subject[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#43)
by Jarulf on Fri Oct 27, 2006 at 03:07:26 AM PDT

One further thing to consider is how to actually meassure "progress of science and usefull art". Is it stricly by meassuring the number of works created? Typically, arguing for copyright, it seems so. In my opinion, it is not. Even ignoring the quality or work a far more interesting thing is to look at the accessability to the public of works. Does it matter if there is a million or ten million new songs written each year to the average person? Since most have a limited ammount of money to invest in entertainement (or music if we stick to that), one can actually only ever get to a tiny fraction of those and that fraction doesn't change with 9 million more songs, so are they needed? Sure, to some extent to have a choice, but when there is sucha limit on the ammount of work created to what is experienced, at some point, one get no real added benefit to creating more work.

So, the question is not, would some artists (or whatever) not be able to support themselves and would less work be created, that is irellevant as long as enough work is created. removing copyright, basically any and all work in existance would be accessible to anyone, while with copyright, one has to select a few out of those in existance that one can actually access and use. I would gladly reduce the ammount of work created to a fraction of what is created to day if as a trade off, I had free access to the rest. SO it is not for example nessecarilly good to incrase the protection for the copyright holder on behalf of the public, even if that meant we would create 100 times more work than today since people can't access any more than they allready do, and probably less with stiffened copyright.

Unfortunately, one tend to look almost exclusively at the bussiness point of view, how they lose potential revenue and income, never at the potential loss to the public for example by longer duration and thus less access by the public.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Property rights[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#46)
by Anonymous User on Fri Oct 27, 2006 at 09:04:33 AM PDT

There are food banks that give food away. Does that mean it's illegitimate for a store, or a farmer, to charge money for the food they have? The fact that some people are willing to give away what they write (be it text, music, or software) doesn't mean it's illegitimate for others of us to choose to charge, at least for some of what we do. (I also provide free assistance to programmers on an online bulletin board, and have donated subroutines to freeware projects.)

There are certainly differences between physical property and intellectual property, not least in the ease of copying. But in either case, the owner has put time, effort, and resources into creating what exists. He has a right to receive compensation for the work he has done, if others wish to receive the benefits. He also has the right, if he chooses, to provide it for free, for whatever reason he wishes to do so. But it's appropriate to have laws to prevent theft of both types of property when the owner chooses to hold it for sale.

I'm not a fan of Microsoft. I think they've been bullies in many arenas. But despite all the excitement about Linux and other open-source software, I find it highly doubtful that computing, both corporate and personal, would have advanced as far as it has had companies like Microsoft, Apple, Lotus, IBM, and the like not been able to charge for their software. And I'm frankly tired of the "Internet changes everything" idea that the accumulated wisdom of centuries now should be thrown out due to some technological tweaks.

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Wisdom?[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#48)
by Anonymous User on Fri Oct 27, 2006 at 10:05:35 AM PDT

"But it's appropriate to have laws to prevent theft of both types of property when the owner chooses to hold it for sale."

You can't steal information. Copying is never theft.

"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me."

Thomas Jefferson said that. Smart guy. Ahead of his time, maybe.

That's wisdom. The current morass of so-called "intellectual property" law isn't. The wisdom of millennia was to share information for the benefit of all -- your repayment being that others shared theirs too.

Payment enough for everyone, for most of civilized history. Until some publishers (not authors) got greedy.

http://www.againstmonopoly.org/
http://www.questioncopyright.org/

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Wisdom??[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#52)
by Anonymous User on Mon Oct 30, 2006 at 07:42:35 AM PDT

The basic principle of copyright is that while an idea cannot be copyrighted, the expression of an idea can be. (A patent is a different animal.) And therefore, copying is indeed theft. Redeveloping an idea on your own is not.

So taking Lord of the Rings (the book) and scanning it into your computer, then providing it to anyone who wants it, for free or for pay, is theft. Writing your own story about elves and wizards is not. Likewise, writing OpenOffice is legitimate competition; duplicating CDs of Microsoft Office is theft.

Copyright is part of the rights of ownership that a creator has, and it has enabled the explosion of software creativity that makes computers so useful to so many people. Anarchists like you may not want to admit that fact, but that doesn't change its truth. If software copyright were eliminated, the availability of new and improved software would quickly diminish dramatically. There would still be open source projects, to be sure, but those will never cover the full range of needs that people have. To suggest that everything else can be handled equally well through consortia and the like is pollyanna thinking to try to cover up your greed to steal the work of others.

But I don't think either of us is going to convince the other. I'll let you have the last word if you like.

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Ugh[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#56)
by Anonymous User on Tue Oct 31, 2006 at 03:06:00 PM PDT

"And therefore, copying is indeed theft."

No, it isn't, since nobody else is deprived of their preexisting copy.

If you're that uneducated on the law, I think we're done here.

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Subject[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#49)
by Jarulf on Sun Oct 29, 2006 at 12:11:06 PM PDT

>But in either case, the owner has put time,
>effort, and resources into creating what exists.
>He has a right to receive compensation for the
>work he has done, if others wish to receive the
>benefits.

You do realise that copyright has nothing to do with ownership right? For one, individual copies are, although often initially owned by the copyright holder, tend to be sold and are after that not owned by thje copyright holder, just as with anything else one sell. The work itself is not owned either by anyone. The copyrightholder has, for a limited time, an exclusive right to certain actions. That is it. It does not mean the copyright holder owns anything.

>He also has the right, if he chooses, to provide
>it for free, for whatever reason he wishes to do
>so.

Of course, whoever makes copy (in a legal way) can of course do whatever he wants with them. Either sell them or give them away.

>But it's appropriate to have laws to prevent
>theft of both types of property when the owner
>chooses to hold it for sale.

Ehh, theft has to do with ownership, since copyright is not about owning, it is quite irellebant. If you talk about individual copies, sure, theft applies just as with anything else. It tends to NOT involve the copyright holder since typically, copes are owned by others.

If you refer to the copyright, are you talking about actually stealing a copyright? How would that ever be possible. How do you steal a copyright so that it turns yours instead of the one currently holding the copyright?

Those would be the only two possible issues about theft that comes close to touch copyright.

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Let me tell you about property rights[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#50)
by Anonymous User on Sun Oct 29, 2006 at 05:55:46 PM PDT

I agree that there is a lot of software theft going on these days. I just don't think you've identified the culprits accurately.

The software thefts I hear about regularly are perpetrated by Microsoft, Symantec, and other large software vendors, stealing from their own customers. They obtain, in good faith, copies of Windows and other products, only for the vendor to take their copies away from them without compensation by using "product activation" and "sunsetting" and similar things. Microsoft plans to steal any copy of Vista you use once you upgrade your system twice. With WGA and various broken updates, Microsoft and Symantec have both stolen peoples' software, usually Windows and NAV, in the past, and this has been the subject of many gripes here. And, of course, on a related note, with DRM companies like the various record labels and Apple figure to sell copies of music to people that they can easily steal back at a later date.

Here are the situations where people buy software (and other copyrighted products) and then have it taken away from them in the dead of night by masked marauders. Here is where "software theft" can be observed happening.

I suggest it's time software users, music lovers, and others start taking back their property rights. They can begin by boycotting every company that tells them that the things they purchase are "licensed, not sold" and then uses that as an excuse to take it away later on by remote control.

Use open source software. Get music without DRM. Boycott iTunes in favor of allofmp3 or even your local CD store (but watch out for bogus "CDs" with copy protection). You might even want to use MacOS, although I wouldn't. Besides its expense (and the expense of the new hardware you'd need to buy), there's the niggling little matter that Apple controls iTunes and iTunes uses DRM. Apple is no better than Microsoft; the only reason they aren't locking down MacOS with WGA-style dirty tricks is that they don't have the market share to support such tactics. Give them that market share and they'll undoubtedly show their true colors, the same colors they already show when they're selling music.

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14 to 20 years[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#6)
by Anonymous User on Fri Oct 20, 2006 at 09:09:50 AM PDT

The duration of copyright should be based upon a few simple principles. First the need to balance the incentive to produce against the expected return (i.e. the longer term gives greater incentive up to a point and less of a return to the public). The up to a point is important to note because if the term is overly long it is actually a disincentive to creativity! I can't imagine that Episodes 1, 2 and 3 of Star Wars would have been delayed as long as they were if the copyright on the first movie had expired in 1991 or that the creation of the final three movies of the trilogy would be in doubt. The last three would be made by somebody if Lucas didn't want the money.

Simplicity in the terms would also help everyone involved in honoring copyrights during their effective term. A straight number of years from initial publication would be the best.

Finally, the length of copyright should not be so long that derivative works are rendered anachronistic. 14 to 20 years with no possibility of extension is a good time frame. We should also make it a matter of constitutional law that if copyright durations are ever adjusted that the ex post facto principle is observed and that the adjustments apply solely to new works. That's the only way we can ensure that the constitution's "limited" times clause is actually enforced.

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How about a totally different approach?[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#9)
by LasVegan on Fri Oct 20, 2006 at 11:49:09 AM PDT

I think we have a much better model of how copyright should work: Trademark. I'd let copyright last forever, but only if you actually use it. If you want an old book or something you contact the copyright holder. If they can't sell you one (at no more than say 2x what it sold for when it was on the market) then the copyright is gone, you're free to copy it, sell your copies, make derivative works etc but you can't pretend it's your creation. (If something has collectible value then copies would have to be marked as being reproductions.) The realistic demand for the old stuff in nil. The real driving force behind long copyrights is Disney wanting to protect ancient Mickey Mouse cartoons--not because they care about the cartoons but because if they let them lapse they lose control over Mickey Mouse. The real solution here is simple enough: Allow trademark protection to be applied retroactively to things currently under copyright.

[ Reply to This ]

Copyright[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#10)
by Anonymous User on Fri Oct 20, 2006 at 12:38:06 PM PDT

I think once printed material has been out of print for 5 years, it should move to the public domain, but remain private for a reasonable number of years if it remains in print. This way, people could convert those out of print books and sources into electronic format and release it into the public domain (so long as they don't claim credit or sell it for profit), so everyone can benefit. I know there are several books I would love to read, published resources that I would like to use, etc. but I cannot because they are out of print and unavailable via online auction. Those of us who could benefit from such material can't if the book never moves into public domain.

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Why wait?[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#12)
by LasVegan on Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 09:33:52 AM PDT

If they won't sell you a copy they've demonstrated that they don't feel they can make money on it. The only reason for copyright is to protect their income and they've in effect said that's no longer relevant. Thus the protection should lapse. I also see no reason to prohibit you from selling the new version. Note, however, that since there is no copyright you can't stop a buyer from reproducing it.

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The Extortion Aspect[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#13)
by srynas on Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 10:16:39 AM PDT

I totally agree. The problem, however, is that as soon as the "owner" of an abandoned product sees someone else attempting to make money on their product they will bellyache about how they are being ripped off an demand, under the letter of the law, retribution for this so-called theft.

I would like to see a law that would explicitly place an "abandoned" product into the public domain so that the so-called owner won't have the ability to extort money.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

A little too far[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#20)
by LasVegan on Tue Oct 24, 2006 at 11:06:08 AM PDT

I don't think it should be quite public domain--you should have to honestly represent whose work it was. I think the original owner should have no rights to what you make selling it, though.

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Hrm[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#22)
by Anonymous User on Tue Oct 24, 2006 at 11:25:42 AM PDT

Why not just make plagiarism a separate offense? A civil tort under most circumstances; criminal fraud if you're misrepresenting something deceptively and large sums of money (or equivalent) are changing hands that might not if the truth were known.

It should be explicitly established, of course, that disclaiming original authorship is enough to boilerplate you from liability, with mainly social norms to enforce making a good faith effort to determine and indicate the actual provenance. But sufficient, for legal purposes, just to mark non-original material as such.

The major remaining dispute area would be when someone honestly independently reinvents something and states it in similar words to an earlier author regarding whom they have no knowledge at the time. If it's pointed out, acknowledging that whoever-it-was said something similar before should suffice, unless there's real evidence that you did know of the earlier work.

Presumption of innocence, and all that.

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Questions...[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#14)
by Jarulf on Mon Oct 23, 2006 at 11:39:54 AM PDT

And how would you transfer this to world wide scale? Would the requirements be on "per country level"? How would you handle the registration (including world wide)? Should only rich people (basically just corporations) be able to register world wide (due to costs issues) or? What would be the responsabilities for a user to check for still existing use? Would you add complete import/export control on anything copyright related to prevent abuses unless there is a true world wide case? In a world wide case, would it be ok if somewere in the world there was the possibility to buy the work? Perhaps through a bulvan purchases or how do you prevent that? Or would the inability to make the work available for purchase to anyone anyplacein the world make you lose the copyright? Just a few questions I can think of that needs answers.

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How to implement it:[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#21)
by LasVegan on Tue Oct 24, 2006 at 11:11:56 AM PDT

The implementation would be simple enough: If you can't find it anywhere you send a letter to the publisher as listed in the work. They have a certain length of time to tell you how to buy one (and actually deliver it) or the copyright is gone. Copyright rules can vary from country to country anyway, it's quite possible that something would be protected in one country and not in another. Maybe some sort of government registry of contact addresses should be maintained in case someone moves. Fundamentally, though, it's contact them and they either produce or lose the rights. By failing to produce they have demonstrated they do not expect to make money on it, thus their loss in this situation is $0. Where can their be harm in the loss of $0?

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Subject[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#31)
by Jarulf on Wed Oct 25, 2006 at 05:39:56 AM PDT

>The implementation would be simple enough: If
>you can't find it anywhere you send a letter to
>the publisher as listed in the work.

So, every single work would require to have a listing of the publisher and were to contact him (with presumably means a non chaning adress) and if not replying, copyright is gone? How would you tie that to a non written work? Who has the burden to prove that such a "test" of copyright actually took place? How lonmg do you have to wait? DO you have to have some sort of proof that you actually sent the letter (or whatever way you contacted them in)? What if they reply that it is indeed available for a hefty sum of (insert ammount rediculous high? How long is the grace period for replying? If you are a private person and get swamped with requests, what time frame do you have? What if you are on vacation or simply gone to travell for say a few month, do you lose copyrights if you don't reply? What if you get sick for an extended time and can't handle contacts, all copyrights gone? What is the grace period on actually delivering a copy of the work? What is a reasonable time? What if someone send you a thousand requests, do you need to deliver then in a certain time? If not, what is the grace period? A day? A week, A month? A year? Per copy? Can you have just one copy available for sale every year? Are you actually required to actually produce unlimited (well limited but very high number) copies of your work (meaning you can't do limited numbers per time unit)? Can you just claim you can't produce more copies until a time 5 years from now (because you got to many orders for example). There are many more problems that makes it not at all simple. It would be a horrible system.

>Copyright rules can vary from country to country
>anyway, it's quite possible that something would
>be protected in one country and not in another.

The issue would not be if it expires differently, the issue would be how to get it to start with and how to keep it for any time at all. Do you have to simultanously release it in all countries (and register it there)? Or can you wait in some way? Or do you lose the copyright if you can't deliver to every place of the earth the first day? Month? Year? Do you need to always be able to ship to anywere in the world to not lose the copyright in another country? How do you handle language issues? Should the provider have to be able to recieve your message for providing the work in any language? Or should a language of choice be attached to each contact info to a picture for example? Again, just a few quick questions, there are, I am sure, tons more.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Repose[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#33)
by LasVegan on Wed Oct 25, 2006 at 08:06:47 AM PDT

I did suggest a government registry to deal with publishers that relocate. In my experience any work with a physical reality has a name/address in it already, I don't think it's onerous to expect them to do what they are already doing for their own reasons. As for the price--I already addressed that before. No more than 2x what it sold for when it was on the market. If you're simply not producing as many as the demand is it is on the market and you retain your copyright. I don't know what a reasonable timeframe would be, I'll leave that up to those in the industry to say what's reasonable.

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subject[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#34)
by Jarulf on Wed Oct 25, 2006 at 09:29:49 AM PDT

>I did suggest a government registry to deal with
>publishers that relocate. In my experience any
>work with a physical reality has a name/address
>in it already, I don't think it's onerous to
>expect them to do what they are already doing
>for their own reasons.

No, most works with a physical reality (whatever that is) does NOT have an address at all in them. I checked several music CDs, books, film DVDs, software (most on computer, several of which I have downloaded legally from the net), pictures and other art bought and so on. I have actually not found almost any address on any of them.

Several do have a copyright notice with who (the name you mentioned) has the copyright but that is in many cases of absolutely no help at all if I wish to contact the person or company. For example, most books have a name of a writer in them, it doesn't even tell what country and often there are multiple person with the same name.

>As for the price--I already addressed that
>before. No more than 2x what it sold for when it
>was on the market.

Sorry for having missed that post then. but what do you mean by "on the market"? The whole point is that as soon as it is removed, copyright expires, no? So the question is, which price? Are you claiming that the price of a copy of a work can never be more than twice as high as the lowest price somoene has asked for it? You do realise that the price typically is not set by the copyright holder anyway but by a a shop, who buys it form a (often in several steps) from a publisher who has a publishing deal with the copyright holder and so on. Which price do you refer to? And in what market? Can one not charge differently in different parts of the world? What about changing exchange rates? What if cost of production goes up? WHat if (insert a million other reasons that might make you want to charge a different price).

>If you're simply not producing as many as the
>demand is it is on the market and you retain
>your copyright.

So as long as you produce one copy at some time it is OK? How do you check that someone, somewere actually got to buy a copy to start with? And make sure it was not a bulvan buying (is bulvan a correct English word?). Like I calimed before, how to detertmine what is a correct reply and what is simply somoene claiming they did not get a request and so on.

Such a system simply doesn't work, there are just to many factors complicating it and making it possible to work arround any of them. You
basically have chaos.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Response[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#40)
by LasVegan on Thu Oct 26, 2006 at 09:46:11 AM PDT

By "a physical reality" I meant a disk in hand or something, as opposed to stuff that's purely electronic. As for addresses--look in manuals or paper in the CD box etc. As for the 2x--I'm saying no more than 2x the highest price it was actually selling for. As for producing one copy at a time--I can't imagine anyone would bother with that to keep a copyright. Either it's economic to produce it at which point they should produce up to the demand or their production capacity, or it isn't economic and they won't produce any. Thus I don't see there's any problem with people trying to circumvent the rule that way.

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Subject[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#44)
by Jarulf on Fri Oct 27, 2006 at 03:17:00 AM PDT