[copyleft-next] Limited-term copyleft

Masayuki Hatta mhatta at gmail.com
Tue Feb 19 05:18:41 UTC 2013


Hi,

I really like and second this idea.  I'll seriously consider releasing my
code under copyleft-next if this idea is realized nicely, since there is no
other well-known FLOSS license now which has similar clause, AFAIK.  I
think this will make copyleft-next quite distinctive.

Some economics literature tries to estimate the optimal copyright term.
For example, Boldrin & Levine (2009) [1] thinks the term should zero at all
but 2 years would be an acceptable compromise.  Pollock (2007) [2] gives 14
years.  It depends on the "decay" rate of value, and my hunch is that the
decay rate of program code is higher than those of copyrighted works in
general.  Maybe 10 years would be a good choice?

Best regards,
MH

--
Masayuki Hatta
Assistant Professor of Economics, Surugadai University, Japan
mhatta at gnu.org / mhatta at debian.org / mhatta at mhatta.org /
hatta.masayuki at surugadai.ac.jp

WWW: http://about.me/mhatta

[1] http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1432245
[2] http://www.rufuspollock.org/economics/papers/optimal_copyright.pdf


2013/2/14 Richard Fontana <fontana at sharpeleven.org>

> Does anyone think the idea of a limited-term copyleft -- particularly
> given that copyleft-next is a software-oriented license -- is a
> good/bad idea?
>
> We're now a few years from the point where there could be 30-year-old
> code under GPL-like licenses. I have found from $DAYJOB experience
> that one occasionally has to deal with legal issues concerning
> *really* old code (in a situation I dealt with today, from 1979;
> admittedly that's unusual).
>
> The idea would be to have the copyleft terms disappear after some
> limited period far short of the statutory copyright term.
>
> This is of course conceptually similar to the Creative Commons
> 'Founder's Copyright' idea and is related to general criticisms of
> present-day copyright term duration.
>
> If anyone thinks it's a good idea, what would be a good copyleft
> duration? 15, 20, 25 years?
>
> Please do not hesitate to shoot this down.
>
> - RF
>
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>



-- 
Masayuki Hatta <mhatta at gmail.com>
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