Imbalance in Copyright
"For it is certain, that neither Homer, nor Virgil, nor Chaucer, nor Spencer, had any idea, that, after they had published their works to the world, they, and their heirs and assigns, retained this property, this exclusive right of transcribing, or re-printing their works for ever.
"In short, upon examination it will be found, that there is no foundation for this copy-right in authors, in the common principles of law, and that the only ground for it is this, that, from the love of knowledge, and the admiration of the works of learning and genius, mankind are prone to give authors, not only the merit, but the reward that is due to them for their works; and upon this principle every civilized state in modern times has introduced exclusive privileges to authors, in the publication of their own works, some for a longer, some for a shorter time. But this suggests no idea of an original property in the author; on the contrary, it is inconsistent with it..." Lord Justice Clerk of the Scottish Court of Session, 1774, Hinton v Donaldson.
"Those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it" - George Santayana
I'm fairly certain that George drew these words from observation that some people simply don't learn from history, even when it is presented to them through schooling, reading, theater or other means.
I don't think he ever conceived of the possibility that future generations would not be able to learn because the sources of their potential to learn from history simply were not available to them; not available because they'd been locked up behind Digital Rights Management systems that did not dissolve and fade away after a few years, but rather persisted forever simply because they could, and the government had made it illegal to circumvent them for any reason, including the fact that the information they "protected" was in the public domain.
Such is the potential for the coming DMCA-style copyright legislation to be introduced by the Conservative minority government here in Canada.
[tag DRM TPM copyright history C-32]
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