Q15 - Copyright was originally the grant

[chiach2]

Im having a bit of confusion on this problem. I was between B and E and ultimately choose E. How do you conclusively rule out B and choose E?

I figured since the stimulus said "the opportunity to derive a reasonable financial reward for their works" B would have been the best answer.
Any thoughts on this?

[vincent_1vs]

Yeah I need some clarification on this one too.

I originally picked D) but then I realized it's hurting the argument instead of supporting it. If there's no practical way to enforce the right, it would NOT even fulfill the original purpose, not to mention going beyond.

A)the way to circulate ideas is irrelevant
B)author's willingness to contribute free ideas is also irrelevant (good for him/her!) We only care about the purpose of copyright, which is giving them the OPPORTUNITY to get some money for the work. Whether they want to take the money is a different issue.
C)Again, irrelevant.

E)I'm not sure. Is it because after their death, the authors no longer need the financial reward so there's no meaning to keep enforcing copyright?

[demetri.blaisdell]

Thanks for posting, both of you. This is a tough question. It's very important to get the "sole purpose" straight.

The point of copyright was to encourage the circulation of ideas by giving authors the opportunity to be rewarded for their work.

So how could copyrights go beyond that purpose?

If the royalties continued after the authors death, the copyright would no longer encourage authors to spread ideas by rewarding them. There won't be new ideas because the author has passed away. Thus, the copyright goes beyond its purpose. We get that in (E).

The wrong answers:

(A) is out of scope. It discusses ways other than copyright to spread ideas.

(B) is tempting but doesn't undermine the purpose. If some authors circulate their work without reward, that doesn't mean other authors won't be spurred on by the promise of reward.

(C) is out of scope. Publishers weren't discussed at all.

(D) might also be tempting. But an inability to enforce copyrights doesn't mean they go beyond their purpose. I guess you might say they are unable to achieve their purpose in the first place.

I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions.

Demetri

[Gerald]

Here's another in-depth explanation. Hope it helps!

PT65, S4, Q15 (Strengthen).

The conclusion of the argument is most strongly supported if which one of the following completes the passage?

(A) publication of copyrighted works is not the only way to circulate ideas
(B) authors are willing to circulate their works even without any financial reward
(C) authors are unable to find a publisher for their copyrighted work
(D) there is no practical way to enforce copyrights
(E) copyrights hold for many years after an author’s death

(E) is correct.

This is an interesting question task: to provide the best premise in support of the conclusion. Our core looks like this:

Original purpose was to encourage circulation by providing financial reward + _________--> Copyright sometimes goes beyond its original purpose

We need an example of copyright protections exceeding their original purpose to encourage circulation with a reasonable financial incentive.

(A) Irrelevant. Who cares whether there are other ways to circulate ideas? Does this tell me current copyright law goes beyond its original purpose to encourage the circulation of ideas? No. Eliminate.

(B) Tempting, because if authors were willing to circulate their works without financial reward, copyright protections wouldn’t be necessary. But this answer doesn’t give us what we want. We want our answer to have copyrights go beyond original intent, not to say the original intent itself is unnecessary. Copyright was intended to encourage authorship by providing financial rewards. That authors might circulate their works without these rewards does not mean copyright sometimes goes beyond its original purpose. It simply means the original purpose is sometimes an unnecessary motivator. Eliminate.

(C) This answer might also be tempting: if a work can’t get published, why bother copyrighting it? Surely it would be easier to circulate the ideas of an un-publishable work if there were no monopoly? But remember, the original copyright law was intended to encourage authors to write by dangling the financial incentive of a monopoly. Couldn’t these poor authors, who can’t find anyone to publish their misunderstood works, have written them hoping to receive the financial incentive? Of course. The fact they never enjoy the reward does not mean copyright law sometimes goes beyond its original purpose. Eliminate.

(D) Enforcement? If copyright couldn’t be enforced, how could it offer excessive protections? This weakens the argument. Eliminate.

That leaves (E): copyrights hold for many years after an author’s death

Does this provide an example of copyright providing more protection than originally intended? Absolutely. The original protections gave a reasonable financial incentive to encourage authors to produce their works. How is money going to encourage a dead man? The financial incentive would have to be pretty steep indeed to entice an author to return from the grave to write that sequel (Though it has been known to happen with Tupac). This is our answer.

[rikky.brown]

Another way to arrive at (E) is by noting the degree that occurs from the stimulus to the answer choice. The stimulus states that copyrights were "temporary government support" and then goes on to say that they are going beyond their purposes. (E) says that copyrights held for "many years after the author's death," hence this isn't very temporary.

[thwolfe]

Not sure I'm agreeing with the explanations here. B still seems right to me.

B: Copyright's original intent is to encourage the spread of ideas. If authors will spread their ideas regardless, then, in such cases, copyright is not serving its original intent. If those authors have their ideas copyrighted anyway, then copyright goes beyond its original intent.

This is probably wrong because of that final "if" - it's an unwarranted assumption.

But E still doesn't seem right to me. Presumably, an author is interested in his or her estate and heirs, so there is certainly a reason to be concerned with how you'll be paid for an idea even after you've died. So there's still a financial incentive, which still encourages the spread of ideas, etc.

Sure, the incentive isn't going to encourage NEW ideas, but it will still encourage the spreading of current ideas. Imagine that you're on your deathbed and you're considering whether to publish your final work. If you knew that the proceeds from this work would benefit your children, then wouldn't you be encouraged to decide to have it published?

[kyuya]

Difficult question. I think previous posts hit on the head how we answer a question like this..

"...sometimes goes beyond it's original purpose". This is an important because we are essentially going to be looking for an example that demonstrates something going beyond its original purpose. The question is - what does this mean - going beyond an original purpose? Doing something other than it was intended to do, and being excessive is how I would interpret that sentence now. So lets look for an example of where copyright is protecting something it originally was not intended to..

(A) this is an auto -eliminate. Has nothing to do with copyrights going beyond original purpose.

(B) I interpreted this the same way with (A) on my original read of the question - just seemed very irrelevant.

(C) if authors cannot get published, what does this have to do with copy rights being excessive? I'm not sure it has anything to do with it.

(D) here was the wrong answer I chose, but why it is wrong was explained pretty well - but requires you really truly understand what going beyond an original purpose means. I think on my initial read I conflated going beyond a purpose as NOT serving the purpose effectively, which made me choose this answer.

If there is no way to enforce it, it would not serve the purpose effectively. It would not serve the purpose at all, actually. But this isn't what we are looking for.

(E) Here is the right answer. If it holds for many years after death it does not encourage the circulation of ideas or provide financial incentive to the author.

In retrospect, this may be an especially good question for POE since the wrong answers are very wrong. IMO, (A), (B) and (C) are easily eliminated. Once you realize in the implication of (D) (that it makes copyrights purpose not achievable) you can move on to (E) and be confident you're correct.

[thwolfe]

Why does it not provide financial incentive if it holds for many years after death? All the time, people do things with consequences in the afterlife in mind. For example, I make more money than I need to give my kids and their kids money. If there can still be a financial incentive in such a case, then the original purpose of copyright is still in place: I am given a financial incentive to share my ideas.

[shirleyx]

Why does it not provide financial incentive if it holds for many years after death? All the time, people do things with consequences in the afterlife in mind. For example, I make more money than I need to give my kids and their kids money. If there can still be a financial incentive in such a case, then the original purpose of copyright is still in place: I am given a financial incentive to share my ideas.

but that requires so many assumptions to make, and LSAT does not let us do that.

[erikwoodward10]

There's gotta be some underlying logic that I'm not picking up on here, because even after reading all of the above and explanations on other I'm still convinced that B should be the correct answer and that E is irrelevant.

The conclusion is that copyrights sometimes go beyond their original purpose. The premise states the purpose, which is to encourage the spread of ideas by incentivizing it with money.

So we need an answer choice that says that copyrights go beyond their purpose: something that shows they do MORE than what is necessary.

B seems to do this perfectly by suggesting that copyrights go beyond their intention by incentivizing it. That isn't necessary--authors will do it for free. I was surprised to see the extreme language in this answer choice (not "some", not "many", but "authors"--"all"), but that is what should make this correct. Authors will do it for free, copyrights go beyond their original purpose by incentivizing the circulation of ideas with money.

E still seems totally irrelevant. I don't get it. Thoughts?