Software copyrights

Although some might not want to admit it, to me it seems clear that Lawrence Lessig’s “free culture” keynote has started people talking about copyright on software (see also here – and here). This is good.

Yesterday, in reply to an article on News.com by Charles Cooper, Lawrence Lessig describes in more detail his opinion on software copyrights. He writes that his proposal has two parts that it helps to keep separate>

• “One is that the terms for software should be much shorter than they are today: 10 years rather than 95 years (for software written by an author but for a company).”
• “The other part is that the source code for that software be kept in escrow, so that when the copyright expires, the source code becomes free (as in both free beer and Free the Mouse!).”

It’s an excellent text, in the form of an appeal to “professor” Cooper to reconsider his giving Lessig an “F” in software.

When I read Dave’s post and Cooper’s article, I couldn’t quite understand what they meant by 10 years not being enough to establish a start-up on the market, and that therefore the suggested shortening of the copyright term for software would pose a threat to the small companies and independent developers. The only thing I can think of is the opinion that some have that the big companies don’t innovate, but merely steal ideas from the small ones. I don’t know to what extent that is true, and how shorter copyrights would affect this.