Comment by dotancohen
12 hours ago
I respectful disagree. I enjoy reading e.g. Asimov and well-executed journalism. And I completely respect the IP of those people who create these works.
12 hours ago
I respectful disagree. I enjoy reading e.g. Asimov and well-executed journalism. And I completely respect the IP of those people who create these works.
I'm what way does it make sense to respect the intellectual property rights of a dead man?
It secures the benefits of copyright for work being produced by the creator up to death, for their heirs and dependents, which is why they were creating for money in the first place. People don’t just die after twenty years of resting on their laurels; everyone is creating copyrighted work. It’s a key part of the incentive to create lasting works of value.
One can make the case that this period should be more limited, or that the combination should be capped, but life+X is the right formulation, I think.
If IP rights end at death, there are some significant perverse incentives for offing big-name artists and authors and whatnot.
The current "lifetime of the author + X years" rules in effect in the United States still carry the same perverse incentive, though the incentive diminishes rapidly as X gets larger; with the very large value of X in effect today the perverse incentive is so small as to be effectively non-existent, but it's still there in theory.
Personally, I'd prefer a fixed term. I know enough independent authors making a living from selling their books that I'm willing to allow the fixed term to be large, like 50 years from date of completion of the work. (With a good definition of "completion" so someone can't cheat by editing a couple lines per year to keep something copyrighted indefinitely). The simpler the rule is, the easier it is to understand, and the harder it is to cheat it. The more complicated you make a rule, the more loopholes get found.
There are significant perverse incentives for me shooting you with a gun and taking your money and running away too. It mostly doesn't happen.
That dead man took the risk of not earning much in his lifetime, to continue feeding his family even after his passing. You might as well ask why does someone acquire life insurance.