Public domain

I found a rather spectacular article on copyright while reading about the [Copyright Term Extension Act] 1:

Scott M. Martin, “The Mythology of the Public Domain: Exploring the Myths Behind Attacks on the Duration of Copyright Protection”, Sep 24, 2002.

There’s no shortage of absurdity, but here’s one of the highlights:

At the risk of speaking words of heresy, it is copyright protection that encourages innovation and creativity, while the public domain discourages both innovation and creativity. Why create something new if you can reprint or reuse something that already exists? Why invest in untested new works if you can instead distribute royalty-free existing works?