[pct-l] beat a dead copyright to death

[Glen Winters]

Just had too put my 2 cents in. I have bought and paid for WP books and Yogi's handbook, I have also used Halfmile's maps. I think its the right thing to do, but copyright laws and patent laws are supposed to be for the public good, and it is good that Yogi and Eric the Black and others should be able to sell their creations at whatever price they wish, including Halfmile's decision to make a gift of his time and effort, we may choose to pay or not to have them. As WP books are no longer in print (correct me if I'm wrong) I would personally copy the maps if those are the maps I wanted to use on my hike (Halfmiles maps are much better), if still in print then buy them. I believe copyright laws should be enforced to compensate the creator, publishers artists, etc for their time and effort, but, copyright law has been modified by congress to protect Disney from decreased revenue not to aid the general public. I believe in freedom of information, has anyone
 looked at project Gutenberg. We the people of the world lost a great deal of what would have been freely available classics because of corporate greed. If Yogi stopped printing her books tomorrow should we the hiking community lose access to her valuable guides? That is where I disagree with current laws and would violate the law. In reality it will cost you more to steal these works then to pay the author for their books, if you want WP maps it would be far cheaper in time and money if you can find a copy to buy then to try to copy the maps.


Sorry for the rant just sick and tired of corporate America. Patent the idea of single click makes me sick. Don't get me started on patent law or ULA's.

Argentina

PS. If your still looking at options for maps books etc needed to hike the trail, almost any of the options will work, but you don't need every option pick a set of maps and a guide books. or a map guide book combo or just maps, if you decide to hike the whole trail it will happen if you are unable to finish the hike this year an extra guide book won't help.