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Such a system only benefits the exact people and companies which we don't want abusing the copyright system. Why would Disney bother paying their lawyers millio
by Thorentis 6y ago
Such a system only benefits the exact people and companies which we don't want abusing the copyright system. Why would Disney bother paying their lawyers millions of dollars to lobby for another extension when they can pay a small (comparative to royalties they receive) fee to automatically have it extended?
- dstick 6y agoAgreed, even if you add two 0’s to that number, it would still benefit Disney (et al), and skew the system negatively for smaller content creators.
- pavlov 6y agoSmall content creators benefit almost nothing from content >20 years old anyway, rare exceptions notwithstanding. Having a real tax on the most valuable IP would be a net benefit.
- cma 6y agoYou could set it up so the fee funds small grants for artists.
- anigbrowl 6y agoUnsure why this is being downvoted, perhaps because it sounds like socialism. But grants for artists or something like UBI are actually great.
- colejohnson66 6y agoDisney would benefit, but if their cost doubles each year, would it be worth it? Given the formula: / 0 (n < 20) \ 10000*2^(n-20) (n >= 20) When 'n' reaches 30 (years) you’re already looking at ~$10 million dollars. A number like that looks like it benefits the big players, but what about 40 years? That’s ~$10.5 billion for one year. Disney’s going to have to think twice about if it’s worth it to keep paying. Add another 5 years, and now they’d be paying a third of a trillion dollars for one year. I don’t think they’d even reach that point before dropping it. The big problem with copyright is that some things don’t make sense to have copyrighted for 20 years, but some do (depending on who you ask, this may not be true). This becomes a problem when multi-billion dollar corporations own the copyright to something. That scale of money wasn’t a thing in the late 1700s when copyright was written into the Constitution.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago> This becomes a problem when multi-billion dollar corporations own the copyright to something. That scale of money wasn’t a thing in the late 1700s when copyright was written into the Constitution. Don't be confused by the numbers; that scale of money was most definitely a thing in the 1700s. Whether you measure it in 2020 USD or bolts of cloth isn't really relevant.
- adrianN 6y agoIf you're a small content maker but financially rely on works you've created more than 20 years ago, you're doing something wrong. Try creating something new.
- pavlov 6y agoThe difference is that the renewal fee is a real tax on IP, whereas Disney paying lawyers mostly benefits lawyers. I don’t mind if Disney still owns “Snow White” a century from now, if they’re paying a $100M tax to do so. Such a fee on each copyrighted work is a huge burden even for a large corporation. They’d choose carefully what they want to retain.
- anothernewdude 6y agoDisney doesn't own Snow White, it's a public domain story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White
- Aloha 6y agoI don't care if Disney still owns their rendition of Snow White 100 years from now, so long as they're paying 100m a year for the privilege.