This still presupposes that the concept of copyright is justifiable...and it's not. People generated creative works for all of human history, long before the concept of copyright, and they did so by building upon the commons. Copyright is theft from the commons, stealing from us all and robbing us of works that may have been. All because some people profit from Imaginary Property (which often infringes upon your actual physical property rights...).
Cool, let's do the same for programmers then. everyone here no longer is allowed to copyright or trademark software or hardware. If you want to develop it, you work for free, and you can flip burgers or something to pay for it. Because you know, intellectual property is bad and all.
Function of hardware/software isn't covered by copyright anyway, unless you have a patent then people can recreate your hardware as long as they don't copy artistic features (non-functional box design, artwork, etc.).
Trademark serves a very important function for buyers/users in providing attribution of origin. Indeed IMO it should be strengthened to protect buyers -- anything with registered trademarks should have origin details publicly accessible so that the specific factory and third-parties involved are also flagged for buyers and not just the company that put a badge on it.
That said, I support copyright strongly, but the period should be more like 10 years unregistered + 10 more with registration.
Copyright is not a natural right but it's granted by the public; long terms don't give a fair deal.
Slightly aside of this: DRM is antithetical to copyright, works that can't enter the public domain should be denied protection; they break the contract with the public.
I realise my situation is not universal, but for me personally nothing much would change if copyright was abolished. All the software that I make public is open source and I make money by making software, not by selling licenses.
