6 ms·

All work by an author should just pass in to the public domain upon their death.

• Justin_K 5y ago
  Should everything you've written follow the same suit?
  • bombcar 5y ago
    I think the author's life + 70 years is a good default for anything not explicitly handled elsewhere, as by that point I and everyone involved will be dead (I suppose my grandkids will still be around at that point, but if 70 years of preparation for the publication of my list of Minecraft mods isn't enough, that's their problem). We're not talking personal or private matters here, we're talking something that would have been published if a publisher had said yes at the time. There's obviously a remuneration aspect and the wishes of the author and heirs should be taken into account, but as some point those diminish.
    • skybrian 5y ago
      It’s excessive for long-lived authors. As a society we don’t need to do that much for heirs. Birth + 70 years or 10 years after death, whichever is later, would be more reasonable.
      • bombcar 5y ago
        What I'd like to see is some way to handle abandoned works - something like "if this book/game/movie is no longer in print you can obtain some form of archival copy for a fee, paid to the library of congress and transferred to the author/assigns/heirs if possible". Books can wait around for 70 years to be handled/digitized, but lots of other works are being lost (or are being preserved "illegally").
  • pmoriarty 5y ago
    Yes.
    • bilbo0s 5y ago
      Wow. Is everyone here aware that this would apply to any source code we write too? If an author writes a private book for his/her SO, that would pass into public domain because the copyright s/he gave to the SO would go away at time of death. I'm assuming that would mean we could not assign rights to source code to our family while we are alive. (Or anyone else come to think of it?) Since those rights go away when we die. This would change a lot. It would change almost everything.
      • kevinh 5y ago
        If they wrote a private book for their spouse, presumably the spouse would have the only copy and would not be required to provide access to it. Copyright wouldn't change that case one way or the other.
• dageshi 5y ago
  Your spouse works so you can write your book. You publish your book and it's a success, you die the next year. Work is immediately public domain and your spouse gets nothing? I don't think so.
  • pmoriarty 5y ago
    Creative people need to stop relying on the broken system of copyright to earn money. They need to find alternate business models, like getting paid in advance by fans through something like patreon or kickstarter. However, while the copyright system still exists its damage to the culture should be minimized by letting cultural works go in to the public domain upon the author's death. The public good far outweighs the earning potential of people who didn't even create the work to begin with.
    • bena 5y ago
      Are you going to back a patreon or kickstarter from someone you've never heard of? It's a messy business and there is no single way it should be done. New authors need to prove themselves somehow. And they should be compensated for their works.
      • pmoriarty 5y ago
        "Are you going to back a patreon or kickstarter from someone you've never heard of?" They'll need to make a pitch and show me some of their work, then if I like it and I can afford it, then yes, I would. Getting one's work out there has never been easier.
        • josephorjoe 5y ago
          so now artists have to not only be talented artists but also talented self promoters. i shudder for the future of art...
          • pmoriarty 5y ago
• hermannj314 5y ago
  People most capable of exploiting public domain works for profit also have tremendous power to end lives prematurely. I think this could end poorly.
  • pmoriarty 5y ago
    There's a huge profit motive for, say, pharmaceutical companies to manufacture unsafe or deadly medicines, for food companies to manufacture unsafe food, etc. But laws, regulations, and agencies like the FDA keep them mostly in check. Yes, there have been some abuses and regulatory capture, but compare the state of US food and medicine before the creation of the FDA and after. The chances of corporations starting to murder authors to profit off public domain assets is unlikely, especially as everyone will be able to use those assets when they become public domain. It's exclusivity and artificial scarcity that earns these companies the most money (or corporations like Disney wouldn't have fought tooth and nail to extend copyright protections).
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• nokcha 5y ago
  That rule would greatly discourage publishers from accepting works from authors who are near death. And it would also be impossible to enforce for anonymous or pseudonymous authors. I think a fixed term term of copyright, like 20 or 30 years, would be better.
• bidirectional 5y ago
  I can see how this could be argued for published work, why should it apply to something unpublished? Should all of their personal correspondence be released too?
  • greyface- 5y ago
    Whether it is released or not is orthogonal to whether it is still protected by copyright.
  • pmoriarty 5y ago
    "Should all of their personal correspondence be released too?" I think it should, since after they're dead it's no longer their correspondence, since they no longer exist. Dead people have neither property rights, nor privacy rights nor any other kinds of interests that should be protected by law.
    • EarthLaunch 5y ago
      Seems like a perverse incentive for murder. Also, a living person could just assign rights to another entity/person to carry them on after death. So it’s not that simple.