Andrew Bailey <andrew at networkharmoni.com.au> writes: > David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > > Andrew Bailey <andrew at networkharmoni.com.au> writes: > > > >>Changing copyright laws to reduce the period in which a work is > >>protected will, in the short term, only advantage publishers. > > And readers, the general public. It will also advance *our* > > interests > > a lot. > > Maybe, maybe not. You may get cheaper books earlier. You may also find > a lot of people cashing in publishing fan fiction in a known universe, > something that you have said you dislike. But if there's much publishing of it going on, those who *do* like it will be benefiting. Strangely enough, my definition of "the general public" is not "me". > Sure there are good derivative works, like Rosencrantz and > Guildenstern are Dead, but not everyone is Stoppard. > > Also you have to not reduce it such that it destroys the viability of > being a full time author. Its much more in the readers interest that > authors are paying the bills by writing rather than doing something > else. The viability of being a full-time author is not changed that I can see by any system of copyright that lasts at least a reasonable time past the author's death. I see no evidence that life+70 years does better at letting authors write full-time than life+50 years does; do you? > Personally, I don't know why we are arguing, we both agree that > copyright should be life+X where X is some reasonable value . > > Frankly I would be mortified if I bought a book I enjoyed , and the > still living author didn't receive any compensation. They have > entertained me and yet they haven't recieved anything, doesn't sound > fair to me. I do this all the time; it's called "used books". -- 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