ime of the author, plus 50 years, and can be renewed. Patents last only 17 years, but cannot be renewed. With technology advancing so quickly, it is notnecessary to maintain the protection of the software for the length of the copyright, but also, it is sometimesnecessary to renew them (Del Guercio 22-24), say, for a 10th sequel in a video game series orversion 47.1 of Bob's Graphic Program. With copyrighted material, one is able to write software similiar tosomeone else's, so long as the programming code is their own, and not borrowed from the others (DelGuercio 22-24). This keeps the industry competitive, and thus results in better software (because everyone isgreedy, and they don't want to fall behind). With patents no one is allowed to create software thatperforms a similar functions. Take AutoCAD and TrueSpace 2, two 3D modeling programs. TrueSpace 2would be a violation of patent laws, as it performs a very close task to AutoCADs, ! which came first. Luckily for us, CAD programs are not new, they have been around formore than 10 years, and no one thought to patent them. Thus, you can see the need for change in the system. The current laws regardingthe protection of intellectual material cannot adequately protect software, they are either too weak ortoo strict. We need a new category of protection. The perfect protection law would most likely last for10 years, renewable. This is long enough to protect a program for as long as it is still useful, andallows for sequels and new versions just in case. It would also have to allow for others to makesimilar software, keeping the industry competitive, but it would have to not allow copying of portions ofother software (because you can't 'quote' something from someone elses software like you can with abook). However, there are many who dispute this, and I can see their point. Current copyright laws haveand will protect software effectively, it can be just as protected a...
