From: Adam Flinton 

Geo wrote:
> "Adam Flinton"  wrote in message
> news:42c57f2d$1{at}w3.nls.net...
>
>
>>A first, useful step would be a drastic reduction of copyright back to
>>its original terms—14 years, renewable once.
>
>
> Wow, mainstream media saying this is a fairly huge change.
>
> Geo.
>
>
BTW from a diiferent pov

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7616

"SURFING the web and making free internet phone calls on your Wi-Fi
laptop, listening to your iPod on the way home, it often seems that,
technologically speaking, we are enjoying a golden age. Human inventiveness
is so finely honed, and the globalised technology industries so productive,
that there appears to be an invention to cater for every modern whim.

But according to a new analysis, this view couldn't be more wrong: far from
being in technological nirvana, we are fast approaching a new dark age.
That, at least, is the conclusion of Jonathan Huebner, a physicist working
at the Pentagon's Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, California. He
says the rate of technological innovation reached a peak a century ago and
has been declining ever since. And like the lookout on the Titanic who
spotted the fateful iceberg, Huebner sees the end of innovation looming
dead ahead. His study will be published in Technological Forecasting and
Social Change.

"

"Rather than growing exponentially, or even keeping pace with
population growth, they peaked in 1873 and have been declining ever since
(see Graphs). Next, he examined the number of patents granted in the US
from 1790 to the present. When he plotted the number of US patents granted
per decade divided by the country's population, he found the graph peaked
in 1915.

The period between 1873 and 1915 was certainly an innovative one. For
instance, it included the major patent-producing years of America's
greatest inventor, Thomas Edison (1847-1931). Edison patented more than
1000 inventions, including the incandescent bulb, electricity generation
and distribution grids, movie cameras and the phonograph."


Makes the IP cartel's arguments look even more threadbare. In essence
"coz we're inventing less we have to patent more areas & for
longer...."

So what was the patent/copyright term in the most inventiave periods? In
fact when did the US start respecting foreign copyright fullstop?

If you privatize knowledge & lock it up more & more then don't be
surprised when overall innovation etc falls.


Adam

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