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By now you may have heard of Amazon remotely erasing from their electronic books, the Kindle, copies of 1984 and Animal Farm. The reaction has been generally scathing, but it's a different aspect brought to light which I want to comment on. To whit, 1984 and Animal Farm were erased because the copyright holder objected. But... While the copyright on “1984” will not expire until 2044 in the United States, it has already expired in other countries, including Canada, Australia and Russia. Web sites in those countries offer digital copies of the book free to all comers.
George Orwell died in 1950. Fifty-nine years ago. In the US copyright on 1984 will note expire untill 94 years after he died. The constitution gave Congress the right to set intellectual property laws to encourage people to create new works, but the idea that anyone would care whether or not their work is still under copyright 94 years after they died is ludicrous. This, in fact, primarily the work of one company. Call it the Mickey Mouse Protection Act, because the law went into effect to make sure Mickey Mouse didn't go into the public domain. The problem with copyrights, patents and so on is that they stifle innovation and creativity. The ability of everyone to take what has already been done and build on it is at the heart of progress, whether technological, intellectual or creative. It is also one of the conditions for modern style capitalism and industrialization. Knowledge must be reasonably free, everyone must be able to use it. If it isn't, you move swiftly to a position where IP producers start extracting monopoly profits, which strangles the use of new ideas. Americans are obsessed with intellectual property because it's one of the few things the US still has a surplus in with the rest of the world. But strangling information also strangles innovation and growth. The price is too high, and it is paid by America as well as America's customers.
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