

Designer's Notebook: The End Of Copyright [2005] - dazbradbury
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2470/designers_notebook_the_end_of_.php

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ojilles
I feel the deprecation of copyrights must come to pass (pure speculation).
Have bought into that notion some time ago. It did make me wonder how did we
end up in this situation in the first place?

I mean, having the copyright laws in place will bring about the current
Hollywood lobby, that's clear (to me). What I wonder is why did we end up with
the copyright model in the first place?

In the article it mentions games as something you'd rent which in the world of
MMO's makes complete sense. But weren't books not kinda the same in the old
days? Too expensive to own, so libraries sprung about. In that setting, you
didn't need copyright either right?

~~~
arto
> What I wonder is why did we end up with the copyright model in the first
> place?

See Karl Fogel's excellent essay "The Surprising History of Copyright and The
Promise of a Post-Copyright World" for a good overview of how copyright laws
came about back in the day:

<http://questioncopyright.org/promise>

TLDR: copyright is an outgrowth of the privatization of government censorship
in sixteenth-century England. Copyright was designed by and for distributors.
The modern romantic notion of copyright existing to protect authors is, at
best, a post-hoc rationalization.

