[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
My solution to the copyright dilemma is to grant it for 20 years after
initial publication to the original producer without charge and without
filing. After that, an increasing scale of payments is required to
renew it. Say, double the price every 10 years. No upper limit.
How did you get 20 years? Why not 5? Why not zero?
Arbitrary number based on rough estimate. Creative works often take
time to enter the broad public consciousness. 20 years seems like a
good balance. If you make it too short, a creator who was just a bit
early loses the benefit of the groundwork he himself laid.
This creates a system known as "fast follower" or, less kindly, "never
be the first". The effects of this system can be seen in the US
semiconductor industry--lots of copycats and only very small incremental
technological improvements.
You wind up producing lots more of Stephen King, Michael Crichton, and
Tom Clancy clones, but no Neil Gaiman or William Gibson.
Why should anyone have the
option of denying the public the benefit of a creative work for decades even if
they were willing to pay for it?
If a creator can't derive *any* benefit, some will avoid the field
altogether, and we are all impoverished.
People would be willing to pay big $$$ for long copyrights if work was in high
demand. High demand works are works that are important to our culture,
scholarship and learning. These are precisely the works we especially would
not want locked down at any price!
I disagree.
How important is Mickey Mouse to our overall culture? I would argue,
not very, yet Disney is willing to pay a fortune for that copyright.
Instead, let's talk about building an anthology of literature from 1900
forward for English class--an almost impossible task.
Currently, nothing since 190X is available. The simple burden of
contacting all the copyright holders you want to use is impossible.
If, however, those copyright holders had to pay a fee, most of the works
would have dropped into the public domain. However, let's talk about
someone like Robert Frost, who was well-known enough that he would
likely have paid the copyright fees. Instead of just being able to sit
on them, a fee coming due encourages the copyright holder to promote
their use. Even though the works are "locked down", the copyright
holder has a large incentive to be accommodating since there are other
public domain works which could be used instead.
-a
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