Reply To: Political Statements
@Icemage One of the most serious problems with copyright is that few people seem to understand it. For example, with all due respect, what you say above — that you “can’t turn on the radio in a classroom and discuss a song” — is simply not so. In fact, one of the broadest and most well established categories of fair use is education.
The problem is that EFF, at the behest of its corporate sponsors (who benefit from piracy), wants to expand the notion of “fair use” to cover any use to which those corporations might want to put artists’ output… without a penny of compensation. What it advocates violates not only US law but also the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, which enumerates artists’ fundamental rights in their work.
No, copyrights probably should not last a hundred years or more, because their purpose is to encourage and reward artists — not to enrich their heirs. And having a public domain is valuable. I have put a lot of my work out either in the public domain or under permissive licenses such as the BSD License. But I’ve chosen to do that, and I certainly haven’t done it with all my work.
An artist or author should be able to restrict the use of his or her work effectively. EFF has opposed every measure — including SOPA, which was so weakened by amendments before it was killed that it would have done only minimal good — that might in any way protect artists. And it shows no signs of stopping so long as Google, BitTorrent, etc. continue to give it money to lobby against artists’ rights.