I hear a lot about "Well, find a new business model!", without explaining why a company should be forced to change based on clearly illegal activity.
This is begging the question. The activity is illegal in the first place because of lobbying by the recording industry starting in the late 1800s/early 1900s.
So if you start a startup, you're totally fine if I take your code, your logo, your copyrights, and your name and create a copycat site and take your customers? You're okay with that?
If so, please send me the details so I can keep an eye on you. Anyone else who's so inclined, reply as well. I'd love to grab a few zero-effort passive income generators.
Trademarks offer a lot more benefit to the consumer than any other IP. Allowing people to use other people's trademarks is like allowing you to use other people's signatures.
Everything else, I'm totally fine with. If you're better at using and marketing my code than I am, fork me over at will. Just don't pretend to be me.
edit: also, if you can exploit my code so much better than I can, consider hiring me. I'm cheap, I don't need a lot of space, and I'm extremely familiar with your codebase.
Conflating trademarks and copyrights is not going to help us come to a rational agreement on the appropriate nature of either one. There's also a considerable difference between commercial and personal infringement.
I support the use of trademarks to prevent consumer confusion; I don't support the abuse of trademarks (e.g. to attempt to suppress commentary, comparison, or criticism). I also support short-term copyrights for the benefit of authors, performers, and creators. I don't support the current system where copyrights can extend beyond 100 years.
Tell you what: if I still have legal control over and working backups of my startup's software 28 years from now, you can contact me and I'll send you a CC0-licensed copy of my most recent release as of this date (Apr. 25, 2013).
I think yours is a fair position (probably because it's close to my own:-). You are not rejecting the idea of IP as a compromise to encourage the production of goods that otherwise might not be created, you're just in favor of reining things in a lot.
Sometimes I still argue the side of the copyright abolitionists. This is for two reasons: first, it's nice to have extremists to expand the space that is considered "normal", and second, I'd rather have zero copyright than effectively perpetual copyright with outrageous penalties for personal infringement.
I am, actually. Of course my EULA will have some clause to the effect of "If you do this, you implicitly accept to go three rounds with me at a time and place of my choosing, including your house". I'll be sure to bring a ref along, of course.
Copyright has been around a lot longer than the late 1800's/early 1900's. And many, many people rely on it for their income, not just the recording industry. In fact, the entire software industry, pretty much. Does the recording industry lose protection because they're big?
Copyright was originally much shorter in duration, and did not cover phonographic recordings. I've lost the link, but I remember reading US senate hearings from the early 1900s in which phonograph producers were arguing against music publishers, basically following the same template you see the record labels using to argue against new technology today.
I was under the impression that the 'recording industry' as we understand it today was spawned in the 1960's as a response to the Beatles and their popularity.
This is begging the question. The activity is illegal in the first place because of lobbying by the recording industry starting in the late 1800s/early 1900s.