I recently read an
article about Intellectual Property that made an interesting point: If it is actual property, why isn't there a property tax? The goal is to keep people from uselessly renewing the copyright when it is of no benefit to them. It is a very FOSS (Free Open Source Software) friendly idea. If it happened, software of no use to the owner would go public domain and be able to be built upon by the community, and make something better. The article mentions the example of old scientific books, which have gone out of print due to not being profitable, can't be put on the internet for wider availability due to copyright laws, and thus, the information is lost to researchers today.
The question is how to figure the amount to tax a idea for. One thought is that the person who comes up with the idea can decide how much to be taxed, and if copyright is broken, that amount is the maximum you can sue for, so no
$1,500,000 per CD lawsuits. Another idea would be a simple standard percentage value of the total income of the copyright, until it hits low enough, and it goes into public domain.
What are your thoughts? Does this seem like a good idea to you? Any better ideas?
Better question: Will we have to go through this
for our ideas, or will the new tax have a better system?
Image source:
"tax table 1.jpg." Windgrove. 27 Feb 2008 .
