[ncallaway]

That’s the basic premise of copyright laws.

It’s a trade. The default state of affairs is no copyright protection.

Society has decided to trade a limited duration monopoly on the copyright of the work, in order to promote more works being created so that we have more works in the public domain.

The entire purpose of copyright is to generate works for the public domain.

So, when the current copyright system fails to do that, we should change that.

You can’t seriously tell me that if we had a law that said: if you don’t make a video game available commercially for 30 years, it enters the public domain, that would have a meaningful impact on the number of video games created.

[michaelt]

> The entire purpose of copyright is to generate works for the public domain.

Is it? Or do we just think on average, producing more copyrighted works adds to the greatness and happiness of our society?

The writing of Harry Potter has brought joy to hundreds of millions of people. The production of a renowned textbook like SICP helps educate an entire generation of professionals and raise the nation's productivity.

[nine_k]

In general, copyright is intended to help more good texts become available, either under a limited monopoly, or later in public domain.

(Same thing with patents, that were intended to help more inventions be published, and not be lost as trade secrets, while also helping to build businesses around them..)