One of the clearest demonstrations of how copyright is actively harmful is the lawsuit that four of the biggest publishers brought against the Internet Archive. As a result of the judge’s decision in favour of the publishers – currently being appealed – more than 500,000 books have been taken out of lending by the Internet Archive, including more than 1,300 banned and “challenged” books. In an open letter to the publishers in the lawsuit, the Internet Archive lists three core reasons why removing half a million ebooks is “having a devastating impact in the US and around the world, with far-reaching implications”.
Cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17259314
No easy solutions but my general guideline would be that both copyright and patents should never last more than half the retirement age of a current generation, calculated via actuarial tables or some trustable scientific method.
The rationale is simple: the ultimate purpose of both is (or, well, should be) to promote creation so that society in general can be participant of the resulting effects. Half the retirement age not only is a good compromise between giving creator control and giving at least half of society the opportunity to enjoy the public good result of creation within their lifetime and within their fair opportunity to earn wages, in particular in such cases as eg.: big pharma and medications, but also promotes that big creators, such as corporations, act towards the public good of lengthening life and providing good living standards for the rest of society.