2 ms·

Only 5-10 years? That's the other end of the extreme. I don't want extremes here, just something fair. If you made a video game or movie that took 200 million d

Only 5-10 years? That's the other end of the extreme. I don't want extremes here, just something fair. If you made a video game or movie that took 200 million dollars to make you'd only have 5-10 years before it would go into public domain and others could rip and use all your assets. Other people could take everything you own and created 5-10 years ago. If you have a regular 9-5 job at a big corporation you might not care but for content creators who make content once, then collect payments years down the line (Music/VideoGames/Films/Authors) that would devastate them.

venomsnake 13y ago
What percent of all copyrighted works generate majority of their revenue after the first 10 year - very small percentage - these are the outliners. And most stuff with 200M production costs either flops and never makes it to black or makes the money back in the first month or so. Otherwise waterworld would be considered a great success. Copyright should be incentive to create and not rent seeking.
angersock 13y ago
How many assets from games 10 years old are worth using? Hell, how many game studios from 10 years ago are still around? This isn't a big deal to limit the copyright on.
- freehunter 13y ago
  Well, World of Warcraft, for one, is still selling almost 10 years later. The entire Warcraft series is as well. Half Life is still selling the series more than 10 years later. The Simpsons is still airing more than 20 years later.
caw 13y ago
I was thinking that copyright should perhaps be limited to some time + a function of you continuing to create work. So Disney gets to keep Mickey so long as they keep using Mickey, JK Rowling keeps Harry Potter so long as she's still writing books and keeping the world up, and the same with Star Wars. However, if nothing new comes out between extensions it falls into public domain. That would catch all the books, 1 hit wonders, orphaned video games (heh, maybe Half Life would be public domain with the wait for HL3), etc. Not a fully fleshed out idea (What about after death, if your kids kept up your bestselling X, or if you released a 10th edition of your horrible book with "THE END" added), but it's an idea.
- venomsnake 13y ago
  Actually something similar to that was the US system prior to the 60s. You had to register copyright and you had to renew it every few years. So you had to be proactive.
- Avenger42 13y ago
  Then you have authors releasing a short story and claiming that's all that's necessary to keep up the copyright. Mickey appears as a cameo in a Disney film and he's back in the vault for another 10 years. (Actually, he's still active in Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, so he's likely to never make it into the public domain.)
  - caw 13y ago
    Is this much different than the current system of life + every changing number when Mickey is going to expire? This small change wouldn't impact the big corporations, but it would start letting smaller things fall into public domain. Then, after a while of acceptance, you do something like limit the number of renewals, make it price prohibitive to renew more than 2-3 times, or limit transferability. Or you could go for a big bang change and hope you have a critical mass of votes.

venomsnake 13y ago

What percent of all copyrighted works generate majority of their revenue after the first 10 year - very small percentage - these are the outliners. And most stuff with 200M production costs either flops and never makes it to black or makes the money back in the first month or so. Otherwise waterworld would be considered a great success. Copyright should be incentive to create and not rent seeking.

angersock 13y ago

How many assets from games 10 years old are worth using? Hell, how many game studios from 10 years ago are still around? This isn't a big deal to limit the copyright on.

freehunter 13y ago
Well, World of Warcraft, for one, is still selling almost 10 years later. The entire Warcraft series is as well. Half Life is still selling the series more than 10 years later. The Simpsons is still airing more than 20 years later.

caw 13y ago

I was thinking that copyright should perhaps be limited to some time + a function of you continuing to create work. So Disney gets to keep Mickey so long as they keep using Mickey, JK Rowling keeps Harry Potter so long as she's still writing books and keeping the world up, and the same with Star Wars. However, if nothing new comes out between extensions it falls into public domain. That would catch all the books, 1 hit wonders, orphaned video games (heh, maybe Half Life would be public domain with the wait for HL3), etc. Not a fully fleshed out idea (What about after death, if your kids kept up your bestselling X, or if you released a 10th edition of your horrible book with "THE END" added), but it's an idea.

venomsnake 13y ago
Actually something similar to that was the US system prior to the 60s. You had to register copyright and you had to renew it every few years. So you had to be proactive.
Avenger42 13y ago
Then you have authors releasing a short story and claiming that's all that's necessary to keep up the copyright. Mickey appears as a cameo in a Disney film and he's back in the vault for another 10 years. (Actually, he's still active in Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, so he's likely to never make it into the public domain.)
- caw 13y ago
  Is this much different than the current system of life + every changing number when Mickey is going to expire? This small change wouldn't impact the big corporations, but it would start letting smaller things fall into public domain. Then, after a while of acceptance, you do something like limit the number of renewals, make it price prohibitive to renew more than 2-3 times, or limit transferability. Or you could go for a big bang change and hope you have a critical mass of votes.