And Mozart and Beethoven died in poverty.
In poverty of material wealth or poverty of the soul?
Artists wanting to make a buck is not an evil thing IMO.
Again there's the built-in assumption that life, existence, depends solely on money - that is, accumulated wealth. Maybe it does. I'd say that at least in the "civilized" world, it sadly apparently does. That's a shame. And despite the claims to the contrary, it has *not* always been so.
Wanting Mickey Mouse to last forever as a cash-cow mouse is.
The tyranny of this is that the creator of Mickey is long dead. Those who now make their fortune from Walt's work had absolutely nothing to do with that work.
I would like to see copyrights last a shorter period and also not survive transfer as an asset beyond, say, one sale by the author and/or his/her estate.
I'd prefer that copyright should under no circumstances be extended past the death of the direct descendants of the work's creator. No progeny, then the work becomes public domain - /with perpetual attribution/. Under no circumstances other than the above exception should copyrights be transferable or considered real or personal property outside of its protection of the holder and his direct heirs, if any.
Also, especially in these days of digital recording, to get a copyright the author or film company or whatever should have to submit a complete digital copy to the Library of Congress so we wouldn't have all these "lost films" and massively expensive recovery projects. I'd make that requirement retroactive (TCM would have to hustle to get them all in).
As if digital copies are inherently more secure or durable. We really don't have enough data points yet to make this claim. In any case it's never been a problem durability of the work but rather a problem with the custodianship of the work.
The present system is much too far to the big money content producers advantage. Surely it's time for someone else to have a crack at Winnie the Pooh or Mary Poppins. It's an aesthetic sin for material like that to be the sole property of a company that has a history of cheapening everything it touches.
True enough.
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Best Regards,
~DJA.-- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
