Re: Asimov Site

["**** ****" <***@***.com>]

Jeff,
    Not your fault if you've confused me with said 'anarchists'. Two or
three people become enraged when a flaw of ourcurrent legislation is pointed
out, and a flameware erupts. Pretty soon, sorting out who said what, and
what did they mean... some of the more subtle contexts can be missed
entirely.

As a creative person yourself, you have every right to try and make a living
for yourself doing such, and if you are even halfway decent, I wish you the
best of luck. Whether it's music, movies, TV, novels... software even, I see
no end of "no-talents" making it big, and I'd hate to think that someone
else's lack of respect for you earning your living makes the situation even
worse. I'm not trying to steal away your livelyhood... try to be honest, but
can you imagine earning any significant income from software you wrote 70
years ago? There's some chance you won't even be alive to collect it. What
about 50 years from now? Oh I'm sure that pennies would trickle in... so why
was this legislation passed? Because if you are a super mega-corp, who feeds
off creative people, telling them that they can't live without your billion
dollar marketing/publishing/PR... then you have pennies from tens of
thousands of different sources. The artists are dead. You aren't providing
anything of worth to society, yet reaming it for all it's worth. And if you
are, well you can buy such legislation, if you are careful about it.

The truth is, (there are only  guesses, but please be reasonable) even
Stephen King likely earns 98% of what he'll earn total, off of a book in the
first 10 years. For Apple2 software, or similar niche markets, I'd say its
closer to 99.99999% of total earnings come in by the 10 year mark. Asking
that we have more reasonable copyright laws is not the same as asking that
creative folk be doomed to homelessness. What kind would I like to see?
Well, in my opin, 25 years is probably too long, but if it were lowered to
that, I'd not complain. All those pirates people worry about so much, it
would make what they are doing far worse, wouldn't it? Most of the software
would still be "protected", so they'd still be pirating, but they only have
to wait a reasonable length of time(still long, would amount to years) to
have such again. As it stands now, a2 software won't be public domain
until... well, until all apple2's have disintegrated. Heck, even 25 years
isn't so long, depending... if the copyright holder had to make it available
for sale to retain copyright, this would satisfy me. I can even listen to
those who tell me it isn't like this (as if I have to be told), but those
idiots who ignorantly claim the current way is best... well, at least I have
the small satisfaction of knowing they'll be burned along with the rest of
us.

Of course, this is a totally seperate issue, but I also believe that being a
politician should be a crime punishable by death. Prefereably death by
torture. Oh wait, we already have that law, it's called high treason. Wonder
why it is so rarely enforced.

Thanks,
John