Remember, we can no longer offer publishers a monopoly, we can only offer them a pretext upon which to sue random members of the public.

So, if we went back in time, you may well find a lot of support for your 20 year term. However, things have changed. Publishers no longer represent a tiny fraction of the public. The printing press is no longer an expensive device possed by a few.

The GPL is a defense only against companies who believe in copyright – it is no defense against those who don’t.

The GPL demonstrates survival is possible without copyright – to those who still believe that they would suffocate without it.

If you want private works published then team up with like minded fellows, pool your funds and make an offer to the owner of the private work.

You should not be denied your liberty for his benefit.
He should not be denied his privacy for your benefit.
Make an agreeable bargain: art for money, money for art.

To clairfy my position, copyright terms should end within the same term as a patent (20 years give or take) and we should focus on creating domains of public works through changing the licensing paradigms.

If you would deny the public the opportunity to profit from your private work (which inescapably builds upon your use, experience or incorporation of public works), then obviously, you should keep your work private – which is fine. Many GPL authors only permit their private modifications to be published once they’ve been assured of equitable payment.

The GPL makes no restraint against anyone from commercially exploiting published GPL software. The GPL GRANTS the PUBLIC LIBERTY.

If you’re not into liberty, but would rather create a non-commercial, money-free zone where software is free as in ‘free beer’ then you should seek a gift economy license that prohibits commercial exploitation of licensed works.

You have painted a picture that there would somehow be universal sharing of ideas and expression if copyright were eliminated and the public good would be maximized. I posit a different result: what would prevent a corporation from profiting from the works of others?

The reciprocity provision may in fact preserve “liberty” but only because it prevents nefarious activities. It is the license and not the fact that copyright is eliminated.

Defining the BSD as a freer license than the GPL relies on a warped notion that the author’s freedom of choice (as to whether or not to suspend the public’s liberty) is superior to the public’s liberty.

Copyright suspends the public’s liberty. It is copyright that is unethical. The GPL embraces this ethical standpoint by nullifying copyright’s suspension of the public’s liberty to enjoy public works.

If you wish to wield copyright in order to enjoy the suspension of the public’s liberty, then this is less free than nullifying it.

GPL grants freedom on condition that this same conditional freedom is granted to any other person to whom you sell or give the software to.

That the GPL does not grant you freedom to suspend this freedom does not make the GPL less free than the BSD.

The GPL requires no reciprocity from a recipient except the preservation of the liberty they’ve been granted.

Find me any aspect of the GPL that obliges a licensee to reciprocate in any respect other than to preserve the liberty of licensees.

There are people certainly who’d like to create licenses that obliged reciprocity – gift economy licenses – “You can use this software, but only if you publish your modifications” (which some would require to be surrendered free of charge).
Check out AFL/HPL and the EUPL which are going in this direction.

Remember it’s the FREE software foundation, and not the RECIPROCAL software foundation.

The GPL is about liberty. It grants you liberty on condition you preserve that liberty.

The GPL does not say “You may not commercially exploit this software unless you publish your modifications”. There are certainly many people that would like this to be observed and get irritated when it doesn’t happen, but that’s because they want a reciprocity contract rather than an assurance of liberty.

Remember: “Free as in freedom, not as in beer”.

Copyright suspends your liberty.
The GPL restores it.

That’s all that’s going on here.

If you want reciprocation of more than liberty, you’ll need a different license.

In a sense, you are right, the GPL does “nullify” by granting the same rights as the original copyright holder. But is this the real power of the GPL? Corporations shudder when the GPL is discussed for only one reason: reciprocity. Without reciprocity, the GPL would not have any teeth. See the effect of BSD and other academic licenses.

The same would be true if copyright were abolished. In fact open source could not exist. Coprporations could go into sourceforge, grab code, put it into proprietary systems, close up the code and then patent the results (and then license it).

I would suggest that Copyright Law is not the enemy of free expression. It is how copyright is licensed.