3 ms·

"The writers and main contributors to most of the pieces named are dead." Your argument presumes that a copyrighted work is not a transferable asset. Let's sa

"The writers and main contributors to most of the pieces named are dead." Your argument presumes that a copyrighted work is not a transferable asset. Let's say your grandfather, at age 75, pens what some publishing house deems the next Great American Novel. He wishes to live in a nice retirement community and is willing to sell the copyright to this work as a means of paying for this lifestyle. The value of his copyright is function of its longevity, so he would garner a larger payment today if copyright laws allow his work to provide a better NPV to the purchaser. Certainly, exclusive rights for 2N years are worth no less than rights for N years, so extensions of copyright can not provider a lower NPV. I am not arguing for or against any particular provision of copyright law -- I am simply objecting to the "author is dead anyway" argument against longer copyright periods.

cookiecaper 16y ago
Well, I don't think it should be exclusively about the life of the author, as I explain later in the comment. I think a relatively short general term from date of publication is good regardless of life of author. I am merely indicating that in cases where the author died many years ago, all the extension of copyright does is allow non-creative people that were once attached to people that were attached to the original author (great-great grandchildren, the men who now control the publishers (very unlikely to be the same men that controlled the publisher back when these works were published in the 50s)) to profit exclusively off of the author's work, which is the very antithesis of a motivation to produce your own creative work. The creative originator long since got all imaginable value out of the work and now the copyright is merely a memorial to society's worship of money over all else.
- ShabbyDoo 16y ago
  It seems that your argument is generalizable to the inherit-ability of wealth.
  - collint 16y ago
    One needs not inherit wealth through death to carry it on. That's what living is for. The privileges afforded from wealth certainly give you a leg up. Take it, or get out of the way.
  - cookiecaper 16y ago
    Wealth is fine in literal terms. If you want to pass money on to your progenitors, that is just fine, as it is with all real property. The key here is that intellectual property and real property have some very fundamental differences. Ideas are assigned owners only to make it plausible to spread those ideas massively -- a stipulation that was necessary when it was expensive to spread ideas (printing). With the internet, dissemination of ideas is much cheaper, though there are often still production costs. Ideas cannot be owned; they are like fire and can only be equally shared. We assign monopolies to make publishing feasible, not to ensure the wealth of two or three generations that live off of the creativity of their grandfathers without contributing anything themselves. If the grandfather wants this to happen, he can convert his copyright to real money while it lasts (and afterward too, though it's harder without the monopoly, of course) and then transfer that money to his children. He shouldn't be able to hold ideas hostage from the people that he shared them with, however.
    - uvdiv 16y ago
      >Ideas cannot be owned; they are like fire and can only be equally shared. We assign monopolies to make publishing feasible, not to ensure the wealth of two or three generations that live off of the creativity of their grandfathers without contributing anything themselves. Here's an alternative ethics. Nontrivial ideas are not natural resources but are created by an author; just as a physical object is the property of its creator, ideas are an intangible property owned by their author. The author can deny others access to his ideas, simply by not-disclosing them (keeping them secret); she has intrinsic control over them. IP ownership is not a monopoly "assigned" by some intangible collective; it is the natural property of its creator. Publishing rights are not an artificial benefit created by government to subsidize authors (out of benevolence); they are contracts between an author and publisher, transferring specific and limited rights (not ownership). Publishers can be forced to pay the author royalties, not out of utilitarian reasons, but because they voluntarily agreed to such terms (the author having natural leverage, e.g. she can refuse to disclose his ideas). >Ideas are assigned owners Did you have that thought, or did the social collective assign it to you?
      - joe_the_user 16y ago
  - joe_the_user 16y ago
    A copyright is a government granted-monopoly. Essentially, it's a little bit of the state's right to restrict other people which has been given to you for reasons that supposedly wise-people consider important. One might argue that it is almost the opposite of private wealth. The government doesn't grant the descendants of social security recipients the right to their forebears' pension either. By your earlier reaoning, the state is "depriving" the pensioners of ability to sell a perpetual income stream to a third party. (yes, this is sarcasm...)

cookiecaper 16y ago

Well, I don't think it should be exclusively about the life of the author, as I explain later in the comment. I think a relatively short general term from date of publication is good regardless of life of author. I am merely indicating that in cases where the author died many years ago, all the extension of copyright does is allow non-creative people that were once attached to people that were attached to the original author (great-great grandchildren, the men who now control the publishers (very unlikely to be the same men that controlled the publisher back when these works were published in the 50s)) to profit exclusively off of the author's work, which is the very antithesis of a motivation to produce your own creative work. The creative originator long since got all imaginable value out of the work and now the copyright is merely a memorial to society's worship of money over all else.

ShabbyDoo 16y ago
It seems that your argument is generalizable to the inherit-ability of wealth.
- collint 16y ago
  One needs not inherit wealth through death to carry it on. That's what living is for. The privileges afforded from wealth certainly give you a leg up. Take it, or get out of the way.
- cookiecaper 16y ago
  Wealth is fine in literal terms. If you want to pass money on to your progenitors, that is just fine, as it is with all real property. The key here is that intellectual property and real property have some very fundamental differences. Ideas are assigned owners only to make it plausible to spread those ideas massively -- a stipulation that was necessary when it was expensive to spread ideas (printing). With the internet, dissemination of ideas is much cheaper, though there are often still production costs. Ideas cannot be owned; they are like fire and can only be equally shared. We assign monopolies to make publishing feasible, not to ensure the wealth of two or three generations that live off of the creativity of their grandfathers without contributing anything themselves. If the grandfather wants this to happen, he can convert his copyright to real money while it lasts (and afterward too, though it's harder without the monopoly, of course) and then transfer that money to his children. He shouldn't be able to hold ideas hostage from the people that he shared them with, however.
  - uvdiv 16y ago
    >Ideas cannot be owned; they are like fire and can only be equally shared. We assign monopolies to make publishing feasible, not to ensure the wealth of two or three generations that live off of the creativity of their grandfathers without contributing anything themselves. Here's an alternative ethics. Nontrivial ideas are not natural resources but are created by an author; just as a physical object is the property of its creator, ideas are an intangible property owned by their author. The author can deny others access to his ideas, simply by not-disclosing them (keeping them secret); she has intrinsic control over them. IP ownership is not a monopoly "assigned" by some intangible collective; it is the natural property of its creator. Publishing rights are not an artificial benefit created by government to subsidize authors (out of benevolence); they are contracts between an author and publisher, transferring specific and limited rights (not ownership). Publishers can be forced to pay the author royalties, not out of utilitarian reasons, but because they voluntarily agreed to such terms (the author having natural leverage, e.g. she can refuse to disclose his ideas). >Ideas are assigned owners Did you have that thought, or did the social collective assign it to you?
    - joe_the_user 16y ago
- joe_the_user 16y ago
  A copyright is a government granted-monopoly. Essentially, it's a little bit of the state's right to restrict other people which has been given to you for reasons that supposedly wise-people consider important. One might argue that it is almost the opposite of private wealth. The government doesn't grant the descendants of social security recipients the right to their forebears' pension either. By your earlier reaoning, the state is "depriving" the pensioners of ability to sell a perpetual income stream to a third party. (yes, this is sarcasm...)