Ping writes about responding to an Times opinion piece where the guy supported the notion of copyright lasting forever (A Great Idea Lives Forever. Shouldn’t Its Copyright? 20 May 2007). Pings disputes that and titles his post: Copyright should not last forever.

That ideas and intellectual property, like written works are infinitely copyable is a good argument to differentiate them from physical property. With works that are able to exist digitally as bits their storage and copying can be done with ver ylittle energy.

I would also add to that argument that physical property deteriorates. Your house will eventually turn into dust or something else by chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed. But ideas and intellectual property can last forever.

A limit on copyright merely makes it more like the physical property that the original opinion writer there uses as a basis for comparison.