So what specific precautions ought one to take to avoid such infringement?

My point is that so many filmmakers have stood on the shoulders of Shakespeare that perpetual copyright would produce an industry that's vastly different from the one we're familiar with, and I'd argue a bleaker one.

I was referring to sculptures and murals installed outdoors, where a notice is far less effective.

Is it "greed" to expect to be able to write a song without fearing being bankrupted by a lawsuit for accidental infringement by the publisher of a song published in 1923-1958?

It limits the photos you're allowed to take if there happens to be a 1923-1958 sculpture or mural in the frame.

OK, here we go: Name all filmmakers that would get sued if William Shakespeare's descendants still owned copyright in his plays.

If Congress enacts any retrospective copyright term reduction, copyright owners will likely sue the United States under their Fifth Amendment right to "just compensation".

Then the public ought to vote in a Congress that will patch copyright to make it behave closer to its purpose.

That's fine if they're carrying a device that accepts Bluetooth file transfer. Or are you claiming that only a vanishingly small percentage of people don't carry such a device everywhere?

That's the question for patents considered as a reward for invention. It's not the question for patents considered as an alternative to trade secrets. If an inventor would keep an invention as a trade secret, then the secret would be out once a skilled reverse engineer buys the device.

I don't follow this logical jump. Could you explain further?

So as I understand it, your claim is that patents and copyrights are the alternative to the entertainment industry becoming a maze of NDAs that bind the public.

In colloquial English, "is" can refer to identical sets or to subsets. Set theory notation is more rigorous: A is a subset of B (A c B) if all elements of A are in B, and A equals B (A = B) if A c B and B c A. Consider these five sets of actions:

• C is the set of copyright infringements.
• P is the set of patent infringements.
• I is the set of infringements, which contains C union P.
• L is the set of larcenies.
• S is the set of acts designated "stealing" by copyright maximalists, which contains I union L.

Obviously, copyright infringement doesn't equal patent infringement (C != P). Yet we say copyright infringement "is" infringement in the sense of a subset (C c I): all actions in C are in I. It's also true that infringement doesn't equal larceny (I != L). The question here is one of definition: whether "stealing" is a good name for some set that contains I union L. If this is true, then "stealing" is broader than larceny, and copyright infringement "is" stealing (C c S).

It's the submitter's problem when, in the analogy, you have to pay "postage" both ways to your cell carrier.

Probably because the fee to send birthday money as a check is less than as a prepaid MasterCard or Visa card.

Because that's the easiest way of sharing something in person with somebody who happens not to subscribe to smartphone service.

And watch print jobs use 23 MB of valuable data quota: 10 MB to send it to the Butt and 10 MB to get it back, plus 15% for framing overhead.

So what's the best option for a poor artist to avoid being bankrupted by such a suit?