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

[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.