Should Marx and Engels be copyrighted?

[bananas]

2. It wasn't always that way.

http://www.arl.org/focus-areas/copyright-ip/2486-copyright-timeline

The 1710 act established the principles of authors' ownership of copyright and a fixed term of protection of copyrighted works (fourteen years, and renewable for fourteen more if the author was alive upon expiration). The statute prevented a monopoly on the part of the booksellers and created a "public domain" for literature by limiting terms of copyright and by ensuring that once a work was purchased the copyright owner no longer had control over its use.