There are no "eternal" copyrights. Basically, under the Copyright Law of the
United States of America an individual copyright is for the life of the author
plus 70 years. For works "created for hire" (and the Heath manuals fit into
this category) the length of the copyright is 95 years. There are other
lengths of copyrights but those two are the most prevalent.
Now trademarks are a "horse of a different color". If a trademark is defended
and maintained then it will be in effect so long as the company exists. But,
for copyrights, there is definitely a length of time before the document (etc.)
passes into public domain.
The Berne Convention has been in effect since 1886 and the world has survived
without any major problems. Many of the people who object to copyright laws
want to profit from the works of others without having to pay for the material.
Although an individual may not think that they are profiting by ignoring
copyright law, every single person who ignores the copyright law contributes to
the loss of income rightfully due the holder of the copyright. It is up to the
holder of the copyright to decide if they want to profit from the copyright or
if they basically want to allow free use of the material and/or put it in
public domain.
Glen, K9STH
Website: http://k9sth.com
--- On Thu, 5/20/10, Jeff Carter <amps@hidden-valley.com> wrote:
One of the things that really bothers me about current day America is how much
we talk about freedom and then think talking about it is equivalent to actually
having it.
If freedom means being free from arbitrary government interference and free
from protection/promotion of corporate interest over individual liberty,
Americans are not free. I have had this pointed out to me by Russian hams, who
love to tell Americans that they should come to Russia so they could be free.
Lest any of you scoff, here is what freedom looks like in Russia:
http://www.cqham.ru/sch_eng.html
Nothing there is of any use to you unless you already own the hardware. >From
my perspective, once you own the hardware, and have paid for it, it should be
yours to do with as you please. If you want to mod it, or dunk it into the
nearest toilet, you should have the freedom to do so. As far as I can
determine, just myself and the Russians believe this nowadays, or at least
we're the only ones saying it out loud.
I am not a believer in eternal copyrights. I'm thinking that the lifetime of
the author is plenty, and 25 years for a corporation is plenty. The direction
that "Intellectual Property" law is headed into will eventually mean that all
advances made by the human race will belong to some corporation in perpetuity,
which in turn will generate engineering lockdown in the West outside of
corporate R&D and signed NDAs.
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