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I am somewhat sympathetic to your position, but couldn't you say that about inventions? Do inventions not become richer when the culture at large is allowed to

I am somewhat sympathetic to your position, but couldn't you say that about inventions? Do inventions not become richer when the culture at large is allowed to build on them (at least within a relatively short period of time)? Stories are sometimes different, but I imagine that forcing the public at large to always start from scratch (or at least from a largely static landscape of compositions) precludes a lot of good works that we can't predict in advance. e.g. sampling in electronic music either uses really old music or doesn't bother with the law until an act gets big. At the same time, an author wants to benefit from and maintain creative control over how their work is used. I'm kind of interested in the following question: If copyright expires after the author's death, why do we respect their wishes in life but not in death? Just because they won't be offended when they're dead? Or is it because we regard their ideas as property and dead people can't own things? In which case, why can't it be passed down through the family in perpetuity and thus be restricted as long as the owners wish for all time? I feel like the right balance is some reasonable fixed term rather than the life of the author since both of those scenarios feel wrong to me.

pbhjpbhj 12y ago
>Do inventions not become richer when the culture at large is allowed to build on them (at least within a relatively short period of time)? // Yes, and that is what patent terms aim to do. The monopoly is there to allow inventors to profit and so to continue to develop and invent. The monopoly is initially exchanged for the explicit disclosure of the invention. Without this deal the public domain would remain sparse as in order to profit (or really 'in order to break even' in many fields of endeavour) inventors would otherwise tend to choose to keep their inventions secret and deprive the public domain of the knowledge of how the invention is worked. Now, of course the development cycle of almost all patentable things has shortened with increased technology and industrialisation. So patent terms in many areas are probably a bit too long as well. But patents protection can realistically be an order of magnitude shorter term than some current copyrights will prove to be, and certainly with no less work put in to the creation.

pbhjpbhj 12y ago

>Do inventions not become richer when the culture at large is allowed to build on them (at least within a relatively short period of time)? // Yes, and that is what patent terms aim to do. The monopoly is there to allow inventors to profit and so to continue to develop and invent. The monopoly is initially exchanged for the explicit disclosure of the invention. Without this deal the public domain would remain sparse as in order to profit (or really 'in order to break even' in many fields of endeavour) inventors would otherwise tend to choose to keep their inventions secret and deprive the public domain of the knowledge of how the invention is worked. Now, of course the development cycle of almost all patentable things has shortened with increased technology and industrialisation. So patent terms in many areas are probably a bit too long as well. But patents protection can realistically be an order of magnitude shorter term than some current copyrights will prove to be, and certainly with no less work put in to the creation.