Copyright laws

An example of how special interests dominate political bodies to get what it wants are the insane copyright laws all over the place.

The idea of copyright of course is to reward those who write or produce things people want, so the laws should be designed to optimize that, not optimize income to the ultimate owners of copyright.  It is well known that things are written and produced even if copying is rampant, but still fairness says the authors and so on should get some money from copies for awhile.

One of the bad things that happens is that copyright owners are allowed to absolutely prevent the use of their characters and ideas in other places -- something just begging for litigation -- but, that aside, it has the perverse effect of denying the public things that would otherwise be produced -- thereby defeating its own purposes.  An example are wonderful books where the rights are inherited by a strange relative of the author who subsequently locks it up.

Instead, the rule should be simple -- you can't use copyright to deny others the right to use your ideas, nor to keep your own product off the market for whatever reason -- you are entitled to reasonable royalties when this happens, for a few years (not the fifty plus we see nowadays) and that is it.

One must distinguish copyright infringement from plagiarism.  The author of something is entitled to mention whenever the work is used, forever, and must be given credit.  Using someone else's work as your own is dishonest and corrupt.  This however is a moral rather than a legal issue -- the state needs, or at least should need, since the US Constitution is obsolete in its provisions here, compelling reason to restrict press and speech freedom.  But only for a reasonable time should one have to pay for it, and then only a reasonable amount (legislatures need to provide details).

Another thing -- I find it astonishing that pornography is subject to copyright.  I suppose the problem is defining it, but I would say the finding that the work is prurient only and of no other value should be a sufficient defense with copyright infringement.  This stuff will appear regardless and does not need legal protection. 

Of course no doubt this would mean you would have Mickey Mouse in all sorts of things the Disney Company doesn't like (actually it happens anyway and the character is not all that valuable outside his native habitat).  So what?  The public loses and only Disney Company gains with the present restrictions.

The thing is in a politically elected body, the commercial press, and movies studios in particular, tend to get what they want.  Not only do they have plenty of money to spend in various ways to influence legislators, but they can also defeat even an incumbent in the ways they report about them, and so on.  It always amazed me how two such politically different institutions, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal seem to have the same editorial views on this one.

My conclusion, and this is just one reason, is that elective democracy just doesn't work as the propaganda would have us think.   Such bodies are corrupt in all sorts of subtle ways without taking bribes.