Nicholas Conrad on Nostr: The issue with copyright is mainly due to excessively long terms that encourage ...

The issue with copyright is mainly due to excessively long terms that encourage authors to write one work and milk it forever, rather than writing more works.

This line of criticism is of course true, but hardly the 'main' one.

The state of Iowa once legislated an alternative value of Pi, yet all the circles in Iowa stayed the same shape. One could point out that the law didn't have the intended effect of making it easier for school children to calculate math problems involving Pi, but the main problem is that laws are just words written down on paper and they have no power to change the fundamental nature of mathematics.

Similarly the main problem with IP laws is not that they are counterproductive to their stated goals (though they are), but that thoughts and ideas simply are not contained in the set of "private goods" over which it is even possible to apply private ownership. And no amount of legislators furiously writing in dusty tomes can make it so.