So I just read Bill Gates' 1976 Open Letter To Hobbyists, in which he whines about not making more money from his software. You know, instead of being proud of making software that people wanted to use. And then the bastard went on and made proprietary licences for software the industry standard, holding back innovation and freedom for decades. What a douche canoe.

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[–] General_Effort@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago

In the US, copyright is limited by Fair Use. It is still IP. Eventually, you'd just be changing how Fair Use works. Not all for the better, I think.

Maybe one could compare it to a right of way over someone's physical property. The public may use it for a certain purpose, in a limited way, which lowers its value. But what value it has, belongs to the owner.