RMS at U of T Monday

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Lennart Sorensen <lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org>

| On Tue, Feb 03, 2009 at 10:27:11AM -0500, Colin McGregor wrote:

| > How does a 10 year copyright sound to everyone?

| Lots of books seem to be hard to find once they are a few years old, so
| even if you want to buy a copy you can't.  So the publishers are
| larhgely just sitting on a copyright and preventing access to the
| material even from people that would pay them money.

RMS argued that 10 years (from date of publication) seemed about right
since it is three times the traditional three-year cycle of
publication to non-availability.

On the other hand, I actually like the Penguin model which seems to
have a long life for their back catalogue.  I also think that the book
to film transition often takes longer than 10 years.

So this argument for 10 years does not convince me.  Not that I'm a fan
of "forever".

It might be worth thinking about copyright being contingent on
availability.  There is nothing so sad as a work lost because of
copyright.

(One of the evils of DRM is that it effectively prevents copyrights
from expiring, if the publisher so chooses.  RMS didn't mention this
because he just says DRM is evil and should not exist, period.)
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