On Fri, Dec 13, 2002 at 02:50:48AM -0600, David Dyer-Bennet <dd-b at dd-b.net> wrote: > Discussions over the years have pointed out some other things -- such > as that if copyright doesn't extend significantly past death, creators > who are old will have a difficult time negotiating decent terms on new > works. "We can't pay you much for this, because you'll probably die > in the next 5 years, and all we're buying from you is the license to > use your copyright; if that ends in 5 years, it's not worth much to > us." > > This leaves me thinking that "life + 25" is a vaguely reasonable place > to end up. It's by no means a "precisely right" point. I get to this same point by the following reasoning: An author needs copyright on his works to make money. So long as he is alive he has some right to revenue from those works. In the event that he dies, his works should retain protection sufficient that their proceeds can be used to the benefit of his children, up until their majority and assumed independent means. So, life + enough time for a child born the day before to reach adulthood. I'd be happy with life + 18 or life + 21. Life + 25 is enough for a college education. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp