[throwaway09223]

> Thing is most people won't even think to apply.

Good. As intended.

[johnnyanmac]

"as intended" means nothing changes for corporations, a race to copyright before releasing anything for the creators who know better, and unaware creators (likely, lower income underprivileged, young) having their ideas stolen by the former 2 the moment they post.

I don't see how this improves on the current model.

[blagie]

It means your post, above, isn't automatically copyrighted, and the public domain expands massively.

I don't even want a copyright on this post, but I've got one.

[johnnyanmac]

Pretty much, yes. I didn't care enough about that above post to copyright it. If I did I wouldn't post it at all.

Thats my issue. I see it as the public domain shrinking immensively. Things posted without vetting attached will 99% not be anything worth stealing and 1% spammed as badly as a meme if it's semi-interesting. And Disney can still lobby congress under this model to expand copyright.

What really improves here? It doesn't even benefit open source development.

[throwaway09223]

> What really improves here?

With affirmative registration we can trivially prove/disprove whether a specific work is registered under copyright. It also greatly expands the works in the public domain.

> It doesn't even benefit open source development.

Sure it does. Code by default is usable by anyone. A registry of copywritten code would appear which we could easily cross-reference.

[antasvara]

>Sure it does. Code by default is usable by anyone. A registry of copywritten code would appear which we could easily cross-reference.

Having an easily accessible registry of copyrighted code would make it easy to "patent troll" any open source projects.

The reverse is also true, but open source projects have much less money to dedicate to legal battles.

[throwaway09223]

No, this isn't true at all. Because everything is presumably under copyright already we already have such a database. It's simply "everything"

The difference here is that the vast majority of works would suddenly be free from this system and unavailable for any type of IP litigation.

[johnnyanmac]

I already asserted that this would not expand the public domain. People just won't publicly post as readily as they do now. You have a very charitable interpretation that assumes we would get the exact same code output we do now despite a radical change in how ownership works.

>Code by default is usable by anyone.

"by default". Any serious entrepreneur wouldn't fall on the default to begin with if the potential losses are that large.

> registry of copywritten code would appear which we could easily cross-reference.

Sounds like a good recipe for more Oracle vs Google battles in my eyes. We just have a reference on what NOT to write. Now there will be discretion on if you just happened to write this kind of code or if you took X+1 lines of a code base when X is allowed. Very useless metrics for a productive piece of software, but the kind thst will absolutely be used by courts.

[throwaway09223]

> Any serious entrepreneur wouldn't fall on the default to begin with if the potential losses are that large.

Huh? It's no change at all for someone who wants to retain copyright. They would just need to file to register.

> We just have a reference on what NOT to write.

You may be confused. This is how it already works. No change.

[freejazz]

I'll copy your post verbatim. Sue me.

It means your post, above, isn't automatically copyrighted, and the public domain expands massively. I don't even want a copyright on this post, but I've got one.