4 ms·

I not wedded to this system. My personal standpoint is that copywrite should be the minimum necessary to encourage and allow people to create works. That woul

I not wedded to this system. My personal standpoint is that copywrite should be the minimum necessary to encourage and allow people to create works. That would suggest to me somewhere south of 10 years, possibly varying with the specific art form. The doubling fee thing is somewhat appealling because it acts as a tax on valuable works. If Disney wants to spend millions to protect Mickey mouse then there is that option, yes the public domain loses, but the tax acts as compensation for that. I don't see why this doesn't work for the little guy. If they want to pay the fees they can, the point is people are only going to pay fees if it's worth it. That applies to Disney or Joe blogs. If it isn't worth $1/$2/$4 why should you get to stop everyone else using it?

blagie 3y ago
Honestly, I think it depends on the form of the work. * I'd be supportive with 10 years for software, articles (newspaper or scientific journal), and similar things which go out-of-date quickly. * I would be supportive of 10-20 years for things which make most of the profit in the first few years, such as movies. * I'd be supportive of 20-30 years for music, where it often really does take a while to build up an audience and to cover costs. * I'd be supportive of the lesser of the authors' life and 50 years for things like books. A lot of books take a long time before they begin generating any sort of reasonable returns. * I'd be supportive of longer periods for things which are CC-BY-SA, GPL, and similar licenses, which aren't as burdensome as All Rights Reserved, and where the copyright has a motive beyond profit. The little guy won't be able to afford this for more than 7-11 years. The big guy will be able to do so much longer. I'd actually rather flip it around so the little guy has longer copyright than megacorps.

blagie 3y ago

Honestly, I think it depends on the form of the work. * I'd be supportive with 10 years for software, articles (newspaper or scientific journal), and similar things which go out-of-date quickly. * I would be supportive of 10-20 years for things which make most of the profit in the first few years, such as movies. * I'd be supportive of 20-30 years for music, where it often really does take a while to build up an audience and to cover costs. * I'd be supportive of the lesser of the authors' life and 50 years for things like books. A lot of books take a long time before they begin generating any sort of reasonable returns. * I'd be supportive of longer periods for things which are CC-BY-SA, GPL, and similar licenses, which aren't as burdensome as All Rights Reserved, and where the copyright has a motive beyond profit. The little guy won't be able to afford this for more than 7-11 years. The big guy will be able to do so much longer. I'd actually rather flip it around so the little guy has longer copyright than megacorps.