IP laws exist to promote publication, not reduce it. If IP owners aren't publishing in a country, why should that country protect their IP?
Oh, wait, there's an international treaties, and pro-copyright UN organization administering it. That UN can't ban the execution of children, but can enforce 70 years plus life of the author says a lot about the power of vested interests.
Agree with your sentiment but not the underling logic.
If IP owners aren't publishing in a country, why should that country protect their IP
Property rights don't vaporise automatically due to lack of use, e.g. in India squatters could, at one time, claim ownership to property after illegally sitting there for a certain period. This seems wrong to me. On the other end if Merck or Pfizer were to get pissed off at say Libya and deny its people certain drugs I would support suspending their property rights.
I agree that this situation is ridiculous and that the black market is often a solid incentive for legislators to re-consider ridiculous regulation. But the suspension of property rights is something that should be thought out meticulously before implementation; in this case it fits into the greater debate on the nature of IP as a "true" property.
Pro-copyright UN organization administering it
I don't think the UN was actively involved in any of these decisions nor overtly in their enforcement any more than it is in other issues - the author was simply quoting UN statutes to underline how this is an evolving debate.
There are a lot of intersecting rationales, but squatters' rights exist in most countries, including common-law ones like the US and UK, in part out of a desire to ensure that the legal situation of ownership doesn't diverge too far from the de facto situation of possession. Prevents the situation where someone digs up a dusty old deed from a basement showing they really own something that someone else is currently living on (and that maybe their parents were also living on); the on-the-ground facts of the past 100 years in that case trump the deed, regardless of whether it's genuine, promoting a sort of stability. Same with adverse possession and boundary disputes; if your neighbor puts up a fence and you don't challenge it, it eventually becomes the new property line, to avoid disputes always going back to ancient documents and upsetting the status quo.
There is, though, an intersecting economic-use rationale, which was especially prevalent in the American west, which is more like the copyright argument: something like, if you're not helping to make America great by neglecting your land, and someone else is willing to mine or farm there, well then move aside.
> Property rights don't vaporise automatically due to lack of use
IP rights are not property rights. They are a temporary monopoly enacted by society as a means for more works to enter the public sphere. If the copyright holders don't exploit their works in a certain country, the bargain is not upheld.
And some IP rights do vaporize automatically due to lack of use, namely trademarks.
> in India squatters could, at one time, claim ownership to property after illegally sitting there for a certain period. This seems wrong to me.
To me it seems right - property is a scarce resource. If someone does not make use of it, and lets it sit unclaimed to the point where they don't notice that someone lives there for quite some time, then why is it in the interest of society to acknowledge that property claim? But it is irrelevant to the discussion at hand, exactly because property is a scarce resource - the arguments that apply to property largely don't apply to copyright.
"If someone does not make use of it, and lets it sit unclaimed to the point where they don't notice that someone lives there for quite some time"
Then you get into different people having different ideas of what it means to "use" something.
A person buys a tract of land and doesn't develop it, because she thinks it should be a nature reserve. Another person wants to build a golf course there. Should the second person be able to just waltz in and build a golf course, because the land isn't being "used"?
Also, in the case of IP, a piece of IP can be "in use" without being publicly available yet. Consider a book being turned into a movie. That can take years.
Property rights don't vaporise automatically due to lack of use
Yes they do. Trademarks are a form of intellectual property, and expire if not maintained/fought.
Likewise most countries do not have absolute property rights. Squatters have rights. The government can compulsary purchase property for the public interest. Why is "copyright property" treated specially than normal property?
I agree with your logic & deduction. I wonder if this is a problem with the first global copyright treaty? The Bern Convention of 1886. Maybe it's time to roll back that? You only get copyright in a region if you're commerically exploiting the copyrighted work in that region (plus a sensible, few year buffer period)
How about letting people everywhere simply vote on copyright? On copyright duration. On copyright extent. On filesharing. Etc. It is the people whom copyright is primarily enforced against. It is their natural right to share information with their fellow men that is restricted. _They_ should have a final say of how many artificial restrictions they are willing to bear to get more works produced. And maybe they dont care about works at all and value their freedoms most?
In the vast majority of copyright discussions, the biggest party is usually being completely ignored, like a flock of sheep. While it is _them_ that will be caged, that will sheared, that will be milked, that will be slaughtered by the resulting policy, they are the only ones having absolutely no baaa and meeh in how much freedom they are willing to trade for how big a benefit. We have only special interests standing around the corrals and deciding "whats best" for the corralled sheep, and unsurprisingly, the decision always end up as total and maximal exploitation of the ones who have no say in it.
How the fuck is this "democracy"? Why is copyright constantly and permanently being excluded from "the will of the people" being mapped into law? Why cant we finally stop all the useless discussions on what would be "best" for the sheep and simply let them decide?
Oh, wait, there's an international treaties, and pro-copyright UN organization administering it. That UN can't ban the execution of children, but can enforce 70 years plus life of the author says a lot about the power of vested interests.