Copyright

[andrewducker]

Go here, open the Flash version. Boggle at the state of the Public Domain.

No time to explain my feelings right now, but goddamit there ought to be a 20 year limit on all copyright.

Comments

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I would allow the original copyright owner to renew it indefinitely though.

Why?

Also, how about their family. If Shakespeare's family was still around, could they still keep people from quoting Hamlet w/o paying them?

The whole point of copyright is to allow someone to make money off of something, but I see no reason to make this indefinite. Copyrights like patents expire so that ideas can go from being individual property to being the common property of everyone. I'm a big believer in common property and I have no patience with selfishness or greed - which is what I see as the ultimate basis for indefinite copyrights.

Given the ease of duplicating information, I'm actually all for the idea of completely eliminating all copyrights. Creators could get paid through schemes like The Street Performer Protocol, which allow creators to make a living while acknowledging that in the modern era attempting to keep people from duplicating information is both futile and ultimately destructive.

[allorin.livejournal.com]

Again, a reasonable argument. I wasn't thinking of profit, I was thinking merely of a creator's rights to their property.

[allorin.livejournal.com]

Though, why shouldn't a family continue to profit?

Say I'm an artist. I work my butt off, establishing a reputation. I paint, as best as I can. I struggle, I sell my wares and just make ends meet. I die, and suddenly my work has greater value. Why shouldn't my family benefit from that? It was my vocation, my job. I didn't have a company pension scheme that they can live off. If I work hard to produce something, and want my family to benefit from that, what's wrong with that?

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Their siblings, spouse and children certainly. But why should someone's great grandchildren who never even knew them profit from the work at all?

[allorin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, a line would have to be drawn. You'd figure the intelectual property would have either allowed the immediate family to make enough money to pass on to future generations already, or it was never that profitable anyway. Either way, the earnings from copyright should probably only extend to spouse and children.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way about creative control. Once a person is dead (or at most once their immediate family is dead), then no one should have the right to control the IP and it would be freely available to everyone.

Of course, the only reason copyrights are getting longer now is the Disney (an evil corporation if there ever was one) is willing to utterly destroy the entire justification for copyright before they will risk letting go of Mickey Mouse. I'll celebrate the day Mickey goes out of copyright simply to celebrate Disney losing.