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"...copyright was 10 or 20 years" Nice thought but unlikely give the copyright bloodhounds about. A better short-term approach would be to change copyright to

"...copyright was 10 or 20 years" Nice thought but unlikely give the copyright bloodhounds about. A better short-term approach would be to change copyright to make access to orphan and neglected works legal so long as one has no pecuniary interest in them. This would free up huge swathes of copyrighted works. Whilst that makes sense, it is opposed by new/existing copyright holders who see the freeing up of these works as competition—even if the orphaned works bear little resemblance to the new works (which is usually the case)—on the grounds that making these works available 'dilutes' the market for newer works (a spurious argument if ever I've heard of one). Another objection comes from a mob of carpetbaggers who want access to them for commercial purposes, that is if said works ever become available (all sorts of strange arrangements have been proposed). Thus the stalemate continues, nothing is done. No wonder piracy exists. BTW a while back I posted a link on YouTube to a 1920s audio recording whose author died about 80 years ago only to get a note from Google that someone still claimed copyright over the work. Seems this lark is done automatically by the mischievous copyright lobby even if there is no such claim by the original author. Incidentally, Google didn't remove the work (presumably on grounds that they were already aware of the 'scam' but were obliged to advise me anyway in case I objected). Right, the copyright system stinks as presently constituted.

kevincox 4y ago
I understand that getting copyright away from the current forever will be difficult, but it would be a shame if we ended up with a complicated system like that where you needed lawyers to argue that something was abandoned. The nice thing about a fixed cutoff from creation, even if it is quite long, is that it is fairly easy to know what is no longer protected because you just need to track how long it has existed.
- hilbert42 4y ago
  Orphan works are reasonably easy to determine, they're usually many decades old and have had no royalties paid through the normal/usual channels for years—and they couldn't be paid anyway as the contact has long since been lost (address unknown). Just to be sure, schemes to protect owners exist and could be implemented. For example, all works in this category would appear in published lists with say a year's grace—if the copyright owner turns up within the grace period with proof of ownership then the work remains in copyright. There's another type material that we do not normally think of as being in copyright but in fact is. That's things like circuit diagrams, blueprints, plans, etc. from, say, obsolete equipment where the company has long gone bankrupt. Often there was no payment made for this info in the first instance as it came with the equipment (as manuals etc.). Denying it now on a copyright 'technicality' stops maintenance industries, hobbyists etc. from building repair infrastructures and such.

kevincox 4y ago

I understand that getting copyright away from the current forever will be difficult, but it would be a shame if we ended up with a complicated system like that where you needed lawyers to argue that something was abandoned. The nice thing about a fixed cutoff from creation, even if it is quite long, is that it is fairly easy to know what is no longer protected because you just need to track how long it has existed.

hilbert42 4y ago
Orphan works are reasonably easy to determine, they're usually many decades old and have had no royalties paid through the normal/usual channels for years—and they couldn't be paid anyway as the contact has long since been lost (address unknown). Just to be sure, schemes to protect owners exist and could be implemented. For example, all works in this category would appear in published lists with say a year's grace—if the copyright owner turns up within the grace period with proof of ownership then the work remains in copyright. There's another type material that we do not normally think of as being in copyright but in fact is. That's things like circuit diagrams, blueprints, plans, etc. from, say, obsolete equipment where the company has long gone bankrupt. Often there was no payment made for this info in the first instance as it came with the equipment (as manuals etc.). Denying it now on a copyright 'technicality' stops maintenance industries, hobbyists etc. from building repair infrastructures and such.