re: #205 Belafon

What the heck? “Patents and copyrights aren’t restricting access to an item, they are restricting access to an idea”
They make sure the inventor/creator gets paid to use the idea she/he developed.

“so copyrights restrict the ability for others to access my works until the copyright goes out. (I’m sure you know this, but you seem to be confusing cost of production with the product)”
No, people can access your work. They just have to compensate you if they’re doing it to make money. Example, my daughter’s school has to reimburse Disney around 3500 bucks one year when they did “Alice in Wonderland”. Seems like a dickish thing for DIsney to do, but:1. They would have had to pay for the rights to just about any play they did, 2. They sold tickets and raised money for the school by doing this, IOW, they made money off of the play. They had no problems “accessing” it.

“You can’t own an idea. “
I don’t argue that anybody owns an idea. I’ve been pretty specific about that. Don’t put words in my mouth that I didn’t say. The copyright holder owns the commercial rights to that idea. If you want to use it to make money, pay her/him for it. If you don’t want to pay, write your own play.
** A quick story that I think is funny: In 1975 I wrote a song that sounds EXACTLY like Coldplay’s “Clocks”. I was in 5th grade and I was fooling around with my mother’s piano (which I didn’t know how to play) and tried to come up with a song that didn’t already sound like something I heard on the radio all the time (I can’t imagine how hard it is today to write a song that doesn’t walk on another song that was already written). Anyway, my version of clock was about how mean Miss Condron was when I had her in 4th grade and how hot Mrs. Boyle (my 5th grade teacher) was. Never went any farther than that because I figured any song I wrote was probably junk.
I could have been a one hit wonder!!