I'm not questioning the idea of copyright generally at all, I'm suggesting that within software fields specifically a shorter period of protection is going to have to be the way forward. The system is beyond unworkable if hardware becomes obsolete year to year or if a 'vital' software company goes under.*
If for whatever reason, MS went under tomorrow, all of a sudden whatever holding company their software goes to could refuse to license it, rendering virtually everything everyone owns inoperable. i.e. If you ever have to reinstall Windows. Granted, then Linux etc. would start to take over and maybe you think that's good. That's honestly an off-the-cuff attempt to think of an impactful modern example.
But the better example for our purposes is with old Mac stuff. If Apple (which they do) refuses to licenses certain stuff it just becomes perpetually unavailable (in some cases) and not legally usable for decades (effectively perpetually unusable). As to the abandonware standard, I would suspect it's a lot more complicated because companies rarely just release their intellectual property when they're going under. And so in theory a lot of unique or vital software could be lost to greed. I think that's unjust but also unworkable.
However, there's the fair use exception. Certainly (as I've said) in our cases it would almost universally apply - probably even if you were using the software for commercial purposes.
*For me it isn't just about efficiency or impact, but rather diversity. I think it's bad if a company can basically withhold a license long enough such that they extinguish people's ability to know about or experience their software - well after it has any real commercial value [but by that I'm thinking like a decade - I'm open to debate (maybe not here though)]. I think it's kind of sad. Salinger springs to mind actually, but even he recognized that there would be some injustice in keeping papers (rather than having burned them) without any prospect of them getting to people. And I think it's sad that enthusiasts then have no real legal options in most cases. That's not the way the law is supposed to work (although this is probably one of the less offensive examples of such disconnect lol).
If for whatever reason, MS went under tomorrow, all of a sudden whatever holding company their software goes to could refuse to license it, rendering virtually everything everyone owns inoperable. i.e. If you ever have to reinstall Windows. Granted, then Linux etc. would start to take over and maybe you think that's good. That's honestly an off-the-cuff attempt to think of an impactful modern example.
But the better example for our purposes is with old Mac stuff. If Apple (which they do) refuses to licenses certain stuff it just becomes perpetually unavailable (in some cases) and not legally usable for decades (effectively perpetually unusable). As to the abandonware standard, I would suspect it's a lot more complicated because companies rarely just release their intellectual property when they're going under. And so in theory a lot of unique or vital software could be lost to greed. I think that's unjust but also unworkable.
However, there's the fair use exception. Certainly (as I've said) in our cases it would almost universally apply - probably even if you were using the software for commercial purposes.
*For me it isn't just about efficiency or impact, but rather diversity. I think it's bad if a company can basically withhold a license long enough such that they extinguish people's ability to know about or experience their software - well after it has any real commercial value [but by that I'm thinking like a decade - I'm open to debate (maybe not here though)]. I think it's kind of sad. Salinger springs to mind actually, but even he recognized that there would be some injustice in keeping papers (rather than having burned them) without any prospect of them getting to people. And I think it's sad that enthusiasts then have no real legal options in most cases. That's not the way the law is supposed to work (although this is probably one of the less offensive examples of such disconnect lol).