| ??? 02/14/07 20:59 Read: times |
#132990 - Copyrights Responding to: ???'s previous message |
Rob Vassar said:
If you'd like to go see some "derived works" of the public domain go watch Disney's Snow White. The heirs of the brothers Grimm received no compensation at all. Disney has made a ton of money off the public domain. Steamboat Willie would have entered the public domain this decade, had it not had it's copyright retroactivly extended back in 1998. I agree that the length of copyrights should be dramatically reduced. If I produce a work that I copyright, that's so I have an incentive to produce that work in the first place. If I generate wealth from that, I can pass that on to my heirs--but I don't think the copyright should survive my death since it is no longer acting as an incentive to anyone; it's just making my heirs money without them having to do anything. That doesn't help me when I'm gone, it doesn't help society, and ultimately I don't think it helps my heirs. Heck, maybe the copyright shouldn't even survive my entire life. If I come up with something like Harry Potter and I have a copyright that lasts my own life, there's no incentive for me to produce anything more my entire life. Sure, if I earn enough in some number of years so that I can be a sloth the rest of my life, that's my right. But I don't think society that should institute copyright laws that grant such long copyrights that the person can just be an unproductive member of society for the rest of his or her life. When it comes to corporations with perpetual life the issue becomes more complicated. But I think the copyright protection for those works should probably be substantially less than a typical human life because the immediate profit that the corporations obtain is adequate incentive to engage in the creative work. At some point, creative works (especially fiction, movies, and music) become a part of the culture. Dare I say that they "belong" to the culture. Now I would like to say that I fully agree with Joseph's anti-communist position and I also agree that what someone creates is their own and there is no obligation to give it away. But at the same time, we're talking about intellectual property here which is different from physical property. Cultural creative works (fiction, movies, music) eventually become a part of culture and should be treated as such. IP such as software eventually becomes so obsolete that there's no reason that they should be indefinitely protected. IMHO. Regards, Craig Steiner |
