No, copyrights make sense to be longer. But not “century” long. But something like 15 years for a copyright, renewable each year after for a growing cost, up to 30 years total, seems reasonable to me.
The main point being, if you’re still making money hand over fist from your book you wrote, or film you made, you can keep the copyright. But at some point, you have to prove it has value by paying for it, with a fast growing price each year after, and still a finite time where the copyright goes away entirely. This prevents dead copyrights where you can’t even find the copyright holder, because they died 50 years ago, and the work is obscure, but you want to license it. But if you create some original song or story or whatever, it’s totally fair that only you get to make money from that for a very long while.
I actually think copyrights could have the exact timeline that patents do right now and I'd be more or less happy; twenty years with a possible ten year extension seems pretty fair to me.
That's enough time to realistically make money off your creation, but not so much time that your great grandkids are also making money off of it.
The fact that a lot of things are invented and patented in the US shows that the comparatively shorter timespan doesn't appear to be discouraging innovation and creativity, and I think that would hold with copyright as well.
> The main point being, if you’re still making money hand over fist from your book you wrote, or film you made, you can keep the copyright.
> But if you create some original song or story or whatever, it’s totally fair that only you get to make money from that for a very long while.
Why is this “very long while” based on how much money you are making, and why would it be different from creating anything else?
The point of taxpayer funded legal and police protection for owners of patents and copyright terms is to incentivize creating something, not to maximize rent seeking abilities for the creator.
I don’t think preventing you from diluting the brand I created is rent seeking. Creating a work is an investment, which, almost never pays off (think of how many unknown musicians, authors, and artists there are). So when you find something that people like en masse, you should be allowed to reap those benefits. I hardly consider that rent seeking. But the escalating cost prevents actual rent seeking - if your work stops producing value, squatting on it IS rent seeking, and so you have to pay escalating amounts, or relinquish it, and let someone else have a stab at it. You are also allowed to continue to create new derivative works, and you have a huge head start on any future competition, since you have that time limited window. So if you continue to create new value, your timer “restarts” on those new works, so I think that’s sufficient incentive to continue creating.
No, copyrights make sense to be longer. But not “century” long. But something like 15 years for a copyright, renewable each year after for a growing cost, up to 30 years total, seems reasonable to me.
The main point being, if you’re still making money hand over fist from your book you wrote, or film you made, you can keep the copyright. But at some point, you have to prove it has value by paying for it, with a fast growing price each year after, and still a finite time where the copyright goes away entirely. This prevents dead copyrights where you can’t even find the copyright holder, because they died 50 years ago, and the work is obscure, but you want to license it. But if you create some original song or story or whatever, it’s totally fair that only you get to make money from that for a very long while.
I actually think copyrights could have the exact timeline that patents do right now and I'd be more or less happy; twenty years with a possible ten year extension seems pretty fair to me.
That's enough time to realistically make money off your creation, but not so much time that your great grandkids are also making money off of it.
The fact that a lot of things are invented and patented in the US shows that the comparatively shorter timespan doesn't appear to be discouraging innovation and creativity, and I think that would hold with copyright as well.
> The main point being, if you’re still making money hand over fist from your book you wrote, or film you made, you can keep the copyright.
> But if you create some original song or story or whatever, it’s totally fair that only you get to make money from that for a very long while.
Why is this “very long while” based on how much money you are making, and why would it be different from creating anything else?
The point of taxpayer funded legal and police protection for owners of patents and copyright terms is to incentivize creating something, not to maximize rent seeking abilities for the creator.
I don’t think preventing you from diluting the brand I created is rent seeking. Creating a work is an investment, which, almost never pays off (think of how many unknown musicians, authors, and artists there are). So when you find something that people like en masse, you should be allowed to reap those benefits. I hardly consider that rent seeking. But the escalating cost prevents actual rent seeking - if your work stops producing value, squatting on it IS rent seeking, and so you have to pay escalating amounts, or relinquish it, and let someone else have a stab at it. You are also allowed to continue to create new derivative works, and you have a huge head start on any future competition, since you have that time limited window. So if you continue to create new value, your timer “restarts” on those new works, so I think that’s sufficient incentive to continue creating.
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