Full MagicWB

[recidivist]

Put me down as one of those who believe and think  that if the originator of an idea(program,process,patent,movie,song,magic spell?,)  chooses to abandon  that idea ,having once  made it known and offered to the public,that the laws should  declare  that idea public domain.
 Once your CHILD reaches 18(possibly 21) you can no longer legally control  his actions nor are you legally responsible for what he does.And ,hopefully,you put much more effort into  nurturing that child than some computer program or novel.



 Under the original U.S. of A. patents and copyrights laws the authors' exclusitivity was recognized for a LIMITED time  which was ,at most,half the usual  author's life expectancy,in a time when  commerce moved much slower;now we have the  ridiculous laws that grant exclusitivity for two lifetimes ,in  a world where commerce and ideas move at the speed of light!

 So someone could invent  a new super clean,efficient energy source or better  car ,and then decide "people aren't worthy of it" and prevent its use ,to the detriment of all.
 Or write ,and  begin to sell,the  SUPER-APP that would  make people want Amigas again,but decide "the heck with it;I don't WANT people to use  Amigas anymore..." and use the government and courts to "protect his rights"

 NO invention,book,music,program, exists ,or came to exist ,in a vacumn;EVERY inventor and author lives in a world built upon earlier  people's work, and builds upon that work.
 
 I,and ,I believe,most people wish to see authors  receive compensation;we often differ in what we think is the proper amount.
 Perhaps SOME authors hate public libraries,fearing that having their work available to the public for free means  fewer books will be sold;yet libraries are widely accepted and promoted.

[recidivist]

RCA had a stranglehold on patents for the  vacumn tube such that every U.S. manufacturer of radios in the  1920s and 1930 had to pay  RCA license fees.Thankfully  the patent protection at that time expired after a modest number of years.Or should be all still be paying  royalties to the descendants of the wheel's inventor.Sometimes the  patent or copyright  is so basic  there is no other way to do "it" I  maintain that the US digital Millenium copyright  Act which extended  copyrights to 5 or 6 times the length of the previous  laws is  the NONSENSE.And  the EULA  on U.S. software prohibits reverse engineering,de-compile,modification and yet there is no  warrant the software will be suitable as sold.
 There are legal precedence in real estate for "abandonware";if you neglect to  put your owned land or property to use and ignore it,AND someone else  comes along and uses it openly,after a period of time set by law,it becomes their property.

[recidivist]

My memory wants to say U.S. copyrights were originally 14 years ,renewable ONCE;surely 28 years is time enough  for an author to reap the rewards of his work.

Further I think  shorter,not longer, copyright periods make sense in view of the vastly  increased knowledge available to today's authors compared to those of 1800,plus ideas  are carried more quickly around the globe.

It is my observation that the if huge numbers of people view or feel  a law is unreasonable or made solely to benefit a particular class at the benefit of the general public,then  many,many, more people will choose to  ignore and violate that law.Despite  putting millions of people in prison,confiscating hundreds of millions in property ,and spending billions in  invasive law enforcement ,the U.S.  still has widespread use of illegal substances.And having broken  one set of laws ,it becomes easier for those millions to break other laws.

 I'd like to see the law of copyrights re-written such that  the author or holder had exclusive rights for the traditional first 14 years and possibly a 7 year renewal;but if at any time after making the work  available for fee,the holder then failed to  make the work available for a period of 7 years,then the work  be declared public  domain by operation of law.7 years is long enough to declare a missing person  dead in the absence of contrary evidence.I think it ought to be long enough to declare a holder's interest dead.

 Perhaps we need a GNU/AmigaOS ?
 
 All these years of legal conniving  and wrangling by  various  incarnations of Amiga patent and copyrights holders sure hasn't benefited Amiga users or developers.

[recidivist]

A partial quote from my Adobe Sytems Photoshop EULA(End User License Agreement) : "...,you agree not to modify,adapt or translate the Software.You also agree not to reverse engineer,decompile,disassemble,or otherwise attempt to discover the source code of the Software....."This is  a phrase commonly found in U.S. EULAs.

 SO in the U.S.,at least, one is not permitted to "peek under the hood" without breaking the law.The EULA makes no provision for curiosity,self-education,or customization for one's own use.

 It might be that you could deduce how to accomplish the  results of the Software by what you belived was your own unique code,only to find yourself in court because  your  code and theirs was identical in  a particular line.

 I believe that I am not alone in thinking we need adjustments to the EULa and  patent/copyrights laws that will  see the authors' interests protected and rewarded without retarding progress in the art or depriving the general public from the benefits of the wok.

[recidivist]

Sounds reasonable.