Court nixes lawsuit fighting copyright law

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Copy? Who says anything about copying?

I'm more talking about derivative works, where someone builds upon an idea but injects their own creativity in it to make a new work. This is the foundation by which progress is made, particularly in the sciences but also in the arts. If you don't understand this, then its obvious you have not participated in the creative process.

Its okay to take other peoples' ideas as inspiration, as long as you put enough of your own creativity in it to create a new work, not a plagarized work. Originality is a continuum, not a simple binary ("yes, its original"/"no it isn't") property. Considering that derivative works have made significant impact in culture and the arts, it is not your right to pre-judge the validity of these works. YOU might see the world as copy/no-copy, but the vast majority of people, including artists and scientists, do not. Artists frequently use the works of others as inpsiration, including making satire. And I shouldn't even have to argue for scientists, who directly cite and argue previous works.

You think its going to be okay to copy a work, say Shakespeare's famous works, and put your name on it and distribute copies merely because the copyright expired? Hardly! Anyone that did that will lose all credibility. Plagiarism is independent of copyright.

But all of this argument is irrelevant. You're making accusations regarding motivation, and not too successfully at that. But you still do not dispute that the public domain is the largest source of inspiration, and hence, innovation. Works in the public domain are free, do not come encumbered with any onerous licensing terms, and allow an artist to exercise his talents to the fullest degree.

It has been realized that a creative society benefits by having a rich public domain--this is not my argument, its well-known for a long time. Even Disney reaches into the public domain or expired copyrighted works as inspiration for its feature animations. There's no need to stifle innovation on the account of protecting Mickey Mouse.

Posted by: Root User   Posted on: 11/25/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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