Crosbie Fitch wrote: > Evidently they did have sufficient incentive, since they accepted the deal > provided by copyright.
And indeed if there was sufficient incentive to publish one work, why weren't they publishing more in the subsequent fifty years that wouldn't now be expiring. If they found that their further works didn't provide enough financial reward why didn't they look for alternative sources of income? I'm very saddened to hear about unsung heroes of rock and roll struggling to survive on state pensions and I realise that not everyone has the ability or opportunity to plan for their future. But I'm as equally saddened by *every* person who struggles to survive on a state pension. I don't see the IPHE lobbying the government for royalties for retired plumbers on old installations. > By all means, change the term of copyright for new works (presumably in > order to increase the incentivisation for publication of new works), but > this cannot be retrospectively applied to existing works without breaking > what was plainly an acceptable contract at the time of original publication. I fail to see what increasing copyright terms will achieve, fifty years is a long time and if you've failed to build upon the number of profitable works you've produced in fifty years it's not likely that another five years, let alone 20+ is going to make a difference. If you're struggling to live on your state pension and the royalties of a fifty year old song you're *still* going to be struggling after any extension. James -- http://www.freecharity.org.uk/ - Free hosting for charities http://jamesd.ukgeeks.co.uk/ _______________________________________________ fc-uk-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/fc-uk-discuss
