Sure, I accept that the toys are great, but scientifically? It's time wasted. At some point people are going to ask what did you accomplish?
If you're a mathematician especially, you'll have nothing to show for it, and if your reports ever get published in the future, they'll be long obsolete and irrelevant.
Who cares? You're getting paid to do what you love and are provided with all the toys you can think of to do that stuff with. If I was a mathematician, I wouldn't really consider that sort of job to be unfulfilling. (Ethical and moral dilemmas are another matter.)
Do you know how many times Disney has claimed Snow White, Cinderella, etc. is being put in the vault forever?
You still can't understand the argument I'm making about plays and movies? A play is by definition a live performance. A video of the play is not equivalent, or else the play would be a movie. Many people believe that the closest we can get to that without putting on a live performance is a script. In the case of a movie, the video is the movie. No one thinks that a script of the movie is a better representation of it than the movie itself. However, some people do think that the script of a play is a better representation of a play that a video of it. Now do you understand my point?
As for your copyright alternative, you still refuse to actually say what it is. By the way, generally speaking, calling someone an ignoramus for disagreeing with something you haven't even brought up yet is a great way to conduct an argument.
Public goods are, by definition nonrivalrous and nonexcludable. Copyright is an attempt to negate both of those characteristics. You can't consistently say that copyright enables a public good because it tries to make it not a public good. You can't have it both ways simultaneously. Trust me, I'm pretty sure I know more about the economics of copyright than you do, been studying it for nearly 20 years now.
Really, studying it for 20 years? Then you'd know that the existence of externalities makes a market inefficient. The only two ways I've ever heard of for correcting for an externality is to artificially create a market for it (via copyright in this case), or via a subsidy/tax.
As for the movies, you can actually buy the right to watch the movie.
Like that makes any difference at all. Ever heard of Disney's "vault?"
Are you actually claiming that it's difficult to buy a Disney movie?
Plays are actually intended to be seen on a stage, not read. Doh.
Did you even read my quote in context? Someone was complaining about movie scripts never being available like how the scripts of plays traditionally have been available. However, the scripts of plays are the best substitute for what is intended to be a live performance. That's not the case for movies, so complaining about the lack of access to movie scripts seems silly.
I think that copyright terms are way too long, but I just don't get why so many people on Slashdot disregard all IP laws as being frivolous and/or useless.
I just don't get why so many people on Slashdot regard IP laws as being the only way to pay for the labor of creation when they are just as broken whether the term is 1 year or 1 millennium.
And despite your "20 years of studying copyright economics", I've yet to hear some new revolutionary idea from you for paying for the labor of creation.
Well, what's this alternative way for paying for the labor of creation.
Shakespeare did not get his career cut to a stop after the first few plays because all his works were derivatives of things of which some were written a very short time earlier. A lack of copyright saved him.
(This is ignoring the fact that I've already agreed to copyright terms being far too long.) Regardless of that, do you have any examples? Let's look at a few of his more famous plays. Romeo and Juliet was based on Tristan and Iseult, a story from centuries before Shakespeare; it wouldn't be a problem even under the current absurd copyright length. Hamlet was also based on a far older story. That's also ignoring that if you accept the Ur-Hamlet origin theory, Shakespeare's company bought the rights to the play, just like what would happen with the modern copyright system. Julius Caesar, Anthony and Cleopatra; I can keep going. Shakespeare wasn't exactly plagiarizing the guy who wrote something ten years ago. This also ignores the fact that copyright does not imply an inability to act as inspiration. Numerous fantasy works are panned as "rip-offs" of Tolkien. They aren't exactly getting sued by his estate, despite the copyright on his work still being in effect.
No, it forces me to pay money to the rights holder who more often than not is a bloodless corporation or estate. Letting me decide who's worthy of getting my money is letting me actively volunteer to give them money or pay them for their live performances.
The arts, as a whole, are a public good. In order for there to be a socially optimal amount of art produced, they need some sort of subsidy. You can either do that by having the government directly fund its creation, or by artificially creating a marketplace for it. With the first option (which is IMO useful as seed money for artists via programs like the NEA, but that's a different discussion), you don't get to decide (directly) where your money goes. By artificially creating a marketplace, you're allowed to decide what you think is worth your money. When you buy a car you're giving money to a "bloodless corporation" as well. Both the car and music required capital for their production. For some reason, you think that only in one case you should be able to decide whether or not to pay that money, regardless of whether or not you make use of the results of that investment. You don't complain about having to pay for the live performance despite the fact that it costs the same to put on regardless of whether or not you show up. Paying for the right to listen to the music works on the same principle. Whether you are required to compensate the investors for too long is a different matter than the actual requirement. I agree with most people here in saying that copyright terms are far too long.
Proposed Amendment XXVIII
Section 1. After a Bill has become Law, if one-fourth* of the States declare the Law to be "unconstitutional" it shall be null and void. It shall be as if the Law never existed.
Section 2. This article shall be inoperative, unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths* of the several States by the date January 1, 2050.
* * [This is called a constitutional majority.]
Your "proposed amendment" would have made the Civil Rights Act and many other slightly unpopular but important constitutional measures impossible to pass. There's a reason super-majorities aren't required for most laws. It's because the government would end up doing nothing. (But I suppose that's your point, isn't it?)
"Most people would like to be delivered from temptation but would like it to keep in touch." -- Robert Orben