Joshua Kronengold <mneme at io.com> writes: > Scott Ingram writes: > >From: "Gametech" <voltronalpha at hotmail.com> > >> Joshua Kronengold wrote: > >> > 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. > >Reductio absurdium indeed. You might as well say that copyright will be > >rendered useless because one day we might be able to record our memories > >digitally. > > That's a tangent, and has nothing to do with copyright. > > The point is that fixing copyright to anyone's lifespan is ludicrous > unless you think the possibility of someone writing a parody or fanfic > (or even commercial variant on same) is a tragedy. And as much as it > might feel like one (just like, say, a negative review), it's not -- > it's just a thing. Parody is protected fair use, so that's not at issue. Most fanfic *is* a tragedy. The better fanfic is a tragedy *twice* (they should have been writing something original). I don't see how I can protect the creators rights if the creator can be forced to sit by and watch people totally pervert his creation. > Without that, a lifetime-based copyright is just a sop to genius 18 > year olders, and a punishment to 80 year olders, who can't necessarily > sell their works for as much...and a means of keeping works out of the > public domain for 0-70 years longer than they would otherwise be. I'd guess anything over life+10 would give old people the same prices on their work. > Remember -- the average lifespan is increasing -- this is -not- a > fixed term. Not sure it's still increasing. -- David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b at dd-b.net / http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/ John Dyer-Bennet 1915-2002 Memorial Site http://john.dyer-bennet.net Dragaera mailing lists, see http://dragaera.info