Dan Gillmor: We must engage in copyright debate
This is an important, concise piece. Worth reading and re-reading. Two great points, among others:
First, the framers of the Constitution created copyright 'to encourage inventiveness. The Constitution explicitly discusses the rights of writers and other creative people in the context of adding to the public good. Congress, the founders wrote, has the obligation and power ``to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries . . .''' Todays' copyright moguls want to discourage inventiveness by locking up their products and by limiting the ways that we can discuss them.
Second, the real thieves are those who have extended the copyright law over and over again, so that much which now should be public doman is still copyrighted, long after the original creator's expectations of copyright! This action is theft from the public.
This is well worth writing your congress-critters about; I have mine, and I offer whatever support I can to those who are lobbying to preserve the public domain and public debate.
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