I think copyright should expire the moment it is no longer actively being printed or produced. Out of Print should equal Out of Copyright. For older works, it they’ve ever gone out of print, that’s a good time to enter the public domain. Go ahead and get a good initial run, but when you cease making your living off it, let others have a try.
I understand this is not a popular take. I could compromise and allow the original 14 year + 14 year renewal.
Let’s think about upper tolerable limits: there’s zero justification for copyright existing past the death of the original author, and I emphasize original author as the sale of copyrights to corporate entities offends me deeply. I would see copyrights as licensable, but never fully transferable or even ownable by any but a non-corporate human individual.
But even the lifespan of the original author seems a bit long.
To be perfectly honest, in my true ideal world, copyright would not exist, and payment for works of art would not exist except in as much as everyone on earth would receive everything they need to live and thrive. Art would then be created by artists because they want to create art, and there would be no restriction on use whatsoever.
Seems overly strict - what if you have cashflow issues, or something is unpopular but then sees a resurgence? A time limit seems more reasonable, and then an out-of-print limit too. Perhaps a way that people can demonstrate demand for something out of print so it can be used to officially require this use it or lose it protection?
It should be 20 - 25 years after death of the author… As it was before, before the Disney chimed in and lobbied copyrights protection 75 years after the author death
Even that’s kinda ridiculous. Why are we inhibiting everyone so your child can profit off something they never touched and that you finished 50 years ago? You had the rest of your damn life to figure out how to profit off it.
In the US, it’s a pretty common situation to have some kind of retirement plan through your job, like a 401k, or if you’re very lucky a pension. And if you die, in a lot of cases, that retirement plan gets paid to your spouse or children in some fashion. That’s a big part of how people plan for their families in case something happens to them. It might help to cover funeral expenses, or settle debts, or legal expenses, or just to make sure their spouse or children can afford to live if they die.
If you’re an independent artist though, you may not have that. Ideally you’d have some kind of life insurance, IRA, etc. to help fill that same role, but art is a fickle business, not everything sells well or is an instant classic, and sometimes it takes a while for something to get popular.
Let’s say I write a book and get it published, and it’s reasonably successful, but not exactly a bestseller. I probably got a nice little payment for selling the rights to the publisher, but I’m also expecting to have more money trickling in for at least a few years as long as it stays in print and keeps selling. And in the meantime I’ll hopefully get more books published, more payments, hopefully bigger, from the publisher, and then have even more money flowing in from book sales. If I’m really lucky, maybe one or more of those books will really be a hit, if not, hopefully I’ll at least have enough moderately successful books published to have a steady income from them, be able to save up some money, keep food on the table, save up for my kids’ college funds, my retirement, etc. it’s a long-term plan.
But instead I keel over and die. My spouse is now a single parent.
If I worked a normal job, hopefully some of those benefits are kicking in to help my spouse take care of herself, my funeral arrangements, and our kids. Survivor benefits from my pension start payment out to them or they get access to my 401k, maybe I even had some kind of life insurance through my job.
But since I didn’t work a normal job, all they get is that trickle of money from my book sales.
And you want to cut even that off for them.
And then to add insult to injury, now that I’m dead and it’s in the public domain, maybe my book gets turned into a movie which becomes an enormous hit and makes millions of dollars for some Hollywood studio, and my family doesn’t get a penny of it.
Yes, ideally we’d have better social safety nets in place to help people out in those kinds of circumstances, but we don’t, and until we do this is what we’re stuck with.
I think copyright should expire the moment it is no longer actively being printed or produced. Out of Print should equal Out of Copyright. For older works, it they’ve ever gone out of print, that’s a good time to enter the public domain. Go ahead and get a good initial run, but when you cease making your living off it, let others have a try.
I understand this is not a popular take. I could compromise and allow the original 14 year + 14 year renewal.
Let’s think about upper tolerable limits: there’s zero justification for copyright existing past the death of the original author, and I emphasize original author as the sale of copyrights to corporate entities offends me deeply. I would see copyrights as licensable, but never fully transferable or even ownable by any but a non-corporate human individual.
But even the lifespan of the original author seems a bit long.
To be perfectly honest, in my true ideal world, copyright would not exist, and payment for works of art would not exist except in as much as everyone on earth would receive everything they need to live and thrive. Art would then be created by artists because they want to create art, and there would be no restriction on use whatsoever.
I do think copyright should still exist, but with fair use being significantly expanded, maybe something like CC BY-NC?.
The bit about being non-transferable and owned by the individual creator is exactly what I was thinking.
Also: fuck patents.
Seems overly strict - what if you have cashflow issues, or something is unpopular but then sees a resurgence? A time limit seems more reasonable, and then an out-of-print limit too. Perhaps a way that people can demonstrate demand for something out of print so it can be used to officially require this use it or lose it protection?
It should be 20 - 25 years after death of the author… As it was before, before the Disney chimed in and lobbied copyrights protection 75 years after the author death
Even that’s kinda ridiculous. Why are we inhibiting everyone so your child can profit off something they never touched and that you finished 50 years ago? You had the rest of your damn life to figure out how to profit off it.
In the US, it’s a pretty common situation to have some kind of retirement plan through your job, like a 401k, or if you’re very lucky a pension. And if you die, in a lot of cases, that retirement plan gets paid to your spouse or children in some fashion. That’s a big part of how people plan for their families in case something happens to them. It might help to cover funeral expenses, or settle debts, or legal expenses, or just to make sure their spouse or children can afford to live if they die.
If you’re an independent artist though, you may not have that. Ideally you’d have some kind of life insurance, IRA, etc. to help fill that same role, but art is a fickle business, not everything sells well or is an instant classic, and sometimes it takes a while for something to get popular.
Let’s say I write a book and get it published, and it’s reasonably successful, but not exactly a bestseller. I probably got a nice little payment for selling the rights to the publisher, but I’m also expecting to have more money trickling in for at least a few years as long as it stays in print and keeps selling. And in the meantime I’ll hopefully get more books published, more payments, hopefully bigger, from the publisher, and then have even more money flowing in from book sales. If I’m really lucky, maybe one or more of those books will really be a hit, if not, hopefully I’ll at least have enough moderately successful books published to have a steady income from them, be able to save up some money, keep food on the table, save up for my kids’ college funds, my retirement, etc. it’s a long-term plan.
But instead I keel over and die. My spouse is now a single parent.
If I worked a normal job, hopefully some of those benefits are kicking in to help my spouse take care of herself, my funeral arrangements, and our kids. Survivor benefits from my pension start payment out to them or they get access to my 401k, maybe I even had some kind of life insurance through my job.
But since I didn’t work a normal job, all they get is that trickle of money from my book sales.
And you want to cut even that off for them.
And then to add insult to injury, now that I’m dead and it’s in the public domain, maybe my book gets turned into a movie which becomes an enormous hit and makes millions of dollars for some Hollywood studio, and my family doesn’t get a penny of it.
Yes, ideally we’d have better social safety nets in place to help people out in those kinds of circumstances, but we don’t, and until we do this is what we’re stuck with.
It’s considered intellectual property so it can be passer down to descendants… As any normal property can be