It seems to me that people are lumping two very different things together: ideas and the application of ideas.
Someone asked what would happen if, in painting, perspective had been copyrighted. I agree, it's ridiculas to allow a copyright on perspective. However, a painting using perspective can be copyrighted.
Music can be thought about in the same way. A I-IV-V chord progression -- commonly used -- should not be copyrightable, however a song that uses that chord progression yet creates a distinct melody should be.
As an occasional wanna-be fiction/non-fiction writer, and a person who writes software, I highly disagree with the idea that a piece of fiction I produce or the source to software I write should not be something I own. I shouldn't reap the rewards of my labor just because I lose nothing by selling a copy of my program? If I spend five or six hundred hours writing a piece of software, why shouldn't I be compensated? And why shouldn't that compensation by contingent upon how many people choose to use my software? Just as importantly, the time it takes to write a particular piece of software doesn't include the thousands of hours of training I had (in writing other software, in reading, in business, in college, etc.) that allowed me to write that software in whatever time it took. Without that training, the development time may well have been much longer.
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How easy it is to find your software, and how many people want that kind of software.
I've averaged pretty close to one email per one hundred downloads of my software, so the above figures seem right to me.
Someone asked what would happen if, in painting, perspective had been copyrighted. I agree, it's ridiculas to allow a copyright on perspective. However, a painting using perspective can be copyrighted.
Music can be thought about in the same way. A I-IV-V chord progression -- commonly used -- should not be copyrightable, however a song that uses that chord progression yet creates a distinct melody should be.
As an occasional wanna-be fiction/non-fiction writer, and a person who writes software, I highly disagree with the idea that a piece of fiction I produce or the source to software I write should not be something I own. I shouldn't reap the rewards of my labor just because I lose nothing by selling a copy of my program? If I spend five or six hundred hours writing a piece of software, why shouldn't I be compensated? And why shouldn't that compensation by contingent upon how many people choose to use my software? Just as importantly, the time it takes to write a particular piece of software doesn't include the thousands of hours of training I had (in writing other software, in reading, in business, in college, etc.) that allowed me to write that software in whatever time it took. Without that training, the development time may well have been much longer.
No, I believe in compensation for one's work.
Sean.