Originally Posted by kane

It seems to me that copyright could find a legitimate middle ground somewhere.

For example.

You grant a work of art - lets just use a book as an example - a copyright for a period of time. Again for example's sake we will say 50 years. So you write book and you own the copyright on the book for 50 years. After that 50 years is up the copyright becomes semi-public domain. What I mean is that you still control the copyright in terms of making money from the work, but when it comes to educational, scientific or artistic study the work is in public domain.

This way if a publisher wants to create a special 50th anniversary edition of the book and put it out in stores, you still get paid. But if a school wants to use the book as a learning tool, you don't get paid. If a school wants to put on a play based on your book, you don't get paid, but if a movie company wants to make a movie of your book you do.

This would allow those who had legitimate educational interests in the book the ability to access and use it without cost, but those who wanted to make money off of it would still have deal with the original copyright owner.