Dragaera

Artificial release dates and online publishing

Fri Dec 13 15:39:30 PST 2002

Joshua Kronengold wrote:
> David Dyer-Bennet writes:
>> I have a few rough rules of thumb.
>
> Heh.  I have a different set.
>
>
>> Copyright shouldn't expire during the original creators life, because
>> they shouldn't have to watch helplessly while other people rape their
>> babies.
>
> I go another way:
>
> Copyright shouldn't extend indefinately, becuase it's important that
> everything eventually go in the soup -- the whole justification for
> copyright is to encourage creation...but eventually, your baby has to
> grow up and move out of the house.
>
Exactly. With the current system: ideas thought up almost 50 years ago are
still under copyright protection, take Tolkiens work for example.
How many pieces of media encroached his work in way that you could validly
claim copyright infringment? Hell half the fantasy gaming ideas were taken
directly from his and other work like his.

> Copyright should have a fixed term, both out of interest of fairness,
> and to encourage creators of any age -- a monetarily motivated 90 year
> old should expect to provide for their children if they produce a
> best-seller just like a younger author might try to provide for their
> later years.  By the same token, though, anything other than a fixed
> term isn't reasonable -- a reductio ad absurdium of this is a work
> written by an immortal or virutally immortal creator -- such a thing
> will never go out of copyright, and by principle 1, works should be
> guarunteed to go out of copyright.
>
>> It's much more important to reward individual human beings who
>> actually create things than it is to create valuable "property".
>
> Agreed here.
>
>> 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.
>
> Yup. This is why it should be a fixed term.
>
> Other points:
>
> The big moneymakers for writers (which you don't
> particularly want to hit) are residuals and adaption rights.
> It may be reasonable to have a longer term for such things
> than for straight derivitave or character copyrights.  Or not;
> you do want a term long enough that most media works
> capitalizing on the popularity of a work in one form will
> need to be created in the term of the copyright so the creator
> has a good chance of reaping their rightful benefits.
> I'd -guess- a good number for copyright is somewhere between
> 30 and 50 years.  OTOH, part of me says that the "right"
> number is 18: the year your kid's allowed to move out of the
> house. :)

If it was engineered to expire after 18 years people would be more likely to
'create' more not less they'd realize they can only ride one wave for so
long and have to paddle back out to the ocean of creation. How many people
still get paid for work they did over 20 years ago outside of the realm of
Arts? We haven't even discussed Trademarks yet either... that's a whole
'nother ball of wax.