4 ms·

The reason why it was "life plus X years" was to provide a means for the family if the creator had an untimely death. After all the logic is that the world has

The reason why it was "life plus X years" was to provide a means for the family if the creator had an untimely death. After all the logic is that the world has their creation, and compensation shouldn't be snuffed out simply cause (s)he died early.

grey-area 9y ago
The reason why it was "life plus X years" was to provide a means for the family if the creator had an untimely death. While that was the ostensible reason, corporations who have had rights assigned to them want to milk those rights after the author's death, indeed often the creator's death is a catalyst for higher sales, which will usually go mostly to the publisher/media conglomerate, not their family.
- noxToken 9y ago
  I always wonder how low the IP for Mickey will sink when that copyright expires. Disney can usually produce good enough content with Mickey including some games (Kingdom Hearts series) and animation for kids. It might not hit the mark for everyone, but I think Disney prides itself on never producing shovelware - even if the content is bland. Imagine the App/Play Store (or whatever exists then) once it expires though. If you thought the Flappy Bird spam was bad...
  - berbec 9y ago
    IANAL - but Mickey Mouse will continue to be protected as a trademark of the Disney company even after Steamboat Willie expires.
Joeboy 9y ago
I get that if somebody's partner dies an untimely death it's unkind to simultaneously remove their family income, but 70 years seems like a ridiculously long buffer.
- mcny 9y ago
  > I get that if somebody's partner dies an untimely death it's unkind to simultaneously remove their family income, but 70 years seems like a ridiculously long buffer. at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I think we can eliminate a lot of this "friction" if we have an effective basic income. I get that eliminating things like copyright could lead us back to an age where only art that people make is basically with some wealthy feudal lord's patronage but it doesn't necessarily have to be that way.
- guelo 9y ago
  If I die my family doesn't keep getting my paycheck. The living are expected to work. Financially comfortable "heirs" are not a good that society needs to protect.
  - Joeboy 9y ago
    The reasons your family wouldn't keep getting your paycheck are practical though (you'd stop doing the work that earns your employer an income). Those reasons don't really exist in the case of "Intellectual Property", and it seems unnecessarily mean to make their loss harsh just because other people's losses are harsh. Although I think it should be more like a few years' buffer rather than a lifetime income.
- tialaramex 9y ago
  When these rules were invented, the ostensible concern really was about destitute artist families. Today it's just an excuse, wheel out Jimmy and have him say about how his grandfather just wanted to do right by the kids and imply that people using Jim's granddad's story idea now it's entering the public domain are "stealing" from him and this is an outrage. Copyright is by its nature rent-seeking, you get income from owning something, and not by actually contributing anything of value. Even in the rare cases where it really _does_ keep some artist's recently bereaved family out of poverty we ought to be asking why aren't we keeping _everybody_ out of poverty? The original argument tried to justify this rent-seeking by saying we are getting something from it, these brilliant ideas might never get published if Copyright doesn't ensure there's a reward. And if they're not published we'd never know about them, you can't riff on Mickey if nobody has ever seen a Mickey Mouse cartoon. And you know what, I don't agree but if the bargain had stuck at 28 years I'd hold my nose. But of course it didn't. We managed to get _Big Pharma_ to put up with a genuinely limited exclusivity period for their drugs, and a world where generic medicines not only exist but thrive - yet somehow Big Content got extension after extension for some guy's idea for a cartoon mouse (among many other things).
dragonwriter 9y ago
> The reason why it was "life plus X years" was to provide a means for the family if the creator had an untimely death. Doesn't make any sense; a fixed term copyright as is used for corporate-author works (currently 90 years) does that just as well. All a “Life plus X” term for, in terms of expected to benefit, is give decreasing expected copyright term as your age increases (well, as remaining life expectancy given known facts decreases, more precisely.) I suspect “Life plus” was more about eliminating disputes about creation date for individually-authored works that aren't immediately published, not about what it provides to author’s families. With a “Life plus” term, creation dates become immaterial in computing the end of the copyright term, if you know who the author is then, once their death date is known, expiration of all copyrights is known even if the exact creation date of some works is not known.

grey-area 9y ago

The reason why it was "life plus X years" was to provide a means for the family if the creator had an untimely death. While that was the ostensible reason, corporations who have had rights assigned to them want to milk those rights after the author's death, indeed often the creator's death is a catalyst for higher sales, which will usually go mostly to the publisher/media conglomerate, not their family.

noxToken 9y ago
I always wonder how low the IP for Mickey will sink when that copyright expires. Disney can usually produce good enough content with Mickey including some games (Kingdom Hearts series) and animation for kids. It might not hit the mark for everyone, but I think Disney prides itself on never producing shovelware - even if the content is bland. Imagine the App/Play Store (or whatever exists then) once it expires though. If you thought the Flappy Bird spam was bad...
- berbec 9y ago
  IANAL - but Mickey Mouse will continue to be protected as a trademark of the Disney company even after Steamboat Willie expires.

Joeboy 9y ago

I get that if somebody's partner dies an untimely death it's unkind to simultaneously remove their family income, but 70 years seems like a ridiculously long buffer.

mcny 9y ago
> I get that if somebody's partner dies an untimely death it's unkind to simultaneously remove their family income, but 70 years seems like a ridiculously long buffer. at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I think we can eliminate a lot of this "friction" if we have an effective basic income. I get that eliminating things like copyright could lead us back to an age where only art that people make is basically with some wealthy feudal lord's patronage but it doesn't necessarily have to be that way.
guelo 9y ago
If I die my family doesn't keep getting my paycheck. The living are expected to work. Financially comfortable "heirs" are not a good that society needs to protect.
- Joeboy 9y ago
  The reasons your family wouldn't keep getting your paycheck are practical though (you'd stop doing the work that earns your employer an income). Those reasons don't really exist in the case of "Intellectual Property", and it seems unnecessarily mean to make their loss harsh just because other people's losses are harsh. Although I think it should be more like a few years' buffer rather than a lifetime income.
tialaramex 9y ago
When these rules were invented, the ostensible concern really was about destitute artist families. Today it's just an excuse, wheel out Jimmy and have him say about how his grandfather just wanted to do right by the kids and imply that people using Jim's granddad's story idea now it's entering the public domain are "stealing" from him and this is an outrage. Copyright is by its nature rent-seeking, you get income from owning something, and not by actually contributing anything of value. Even in the rare cases where it really _does_ keep some artist's recently bereaved family out of poverty we ought to be asking why aren't we keeping _everybody_ out of poverty? The original argument tried to justify this rent-seeking by saying we are getting something from it, these brilliant ideas might never get published if Copyright doesn't ensure there's a reward. And if they're not published we'd never know about them, you can't riff on Mickey if nobody has ever seen a Mickey Mouse cartoon. And you know what, I don't agree but if the bargain had stuck at 28 years I'd hold my nose. But of course it didn't. We managed to get _Big Pharma_ to put up with a genuinely limited exclusivity period for their drugs, and a world where generic medicines not only exist but thrive - yet somehow Big Content got extension after extension for some guy's idea for a cartoon mouse (among many other things).

dragonwriter 9y ago

> The reason why it was "life plus X years" was to provide a means for the family if the creator had an untimely death. Doesn't make any sense; a fixed term copyright as is used for corporate-author works (currently 90 years) does that just as well. All a “Life plus X” term for, in terms of expected to benefit, is give decreasing expected copyright term as your age increases (well, as remaining life expectancy given known facts decreases, more precisely.) I suspect “Life plus” was more about eliminating disputes about creation date for individually-authored works that aren't immediately published, not about what it provides to author’s families. With a “Life plus” term, creation dates become immaterial in computing the end of the copyright term, if you know who the author is then, once their death date is known, expiration of all copyrights is known even if the exact creation date of some works is not known.