Comment by phendrenad2
7 hours ago
There should be some kind of "challenge" process where people can demand that rightsholders "put up or shut up", or lose their work to the public domain. Right now, we have a perverse incentive where publishers are incentivized to say they DO NOT own a work, in hopes that someone will do all the work of making some derivative work and then they can swoop in and demand rent. There should be a way to say "we asked for proof, they didn't respond, so our ass is covered here, go pound rocks, Warner Brothers, Activision, and/or 20th Century Fox".
Obviously this would only apply to things that sold above a certain number of units, making it something of cultural relevance. We also don't want this law abused to steal things if someone gets a copy of your dropbox files and you can't afford a lawyer to respond to legal demands.
I would instead reduce the duration of copyright protection. Not an expert by any means, but my gut feeling is that in the case of art like books, movies, songs, videgames etc. the right-holders make most of the money in the first 10 years after release. If you're interested in a book, movie, or videogame, you will not wait 10 years to get it for free; you would still pay for it. So I think the duration of copyright should be reduced to circa 10 years, maybe 20 if we want to be generous to the right-holders, but no more than that.