Eternal Copyright: a Modest Proposal 184
New submitter SpockLogic writes "The Telegraphs has a tongue in cheek essay in praise of eternal copyright by the founder of an online games company. Quoting: 'Imagine you're a new parent at 30 years old and you've just published a bestselling new novel. Under the current system, if you lived to 70 years old and your descendants all had children at the age of 30, the copyright in your book – and thus the proceeds – would provide for your children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren. But what, I ask, about your great-great-great-grandchildren? What do they get? How can our laws be so heartless as to deny them the benefit of your hard work in the name of some do-gooding concept as the "public good," simply because they were born a mere century and a half after the book was written? After all, when you wrote your book, it sprung from your mind fully-formed, without requiring any inspiration from other creative works – you owe nothing at all to the public. And what would the public do with your book, even if they had it? Most likely, they'd just make it worse.'"
I'm all for it (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm all for eternal copyright. However, after a certain amount of time (say 20-30 years or so), you would have to start paying a fee to the government to maintain your copyright. This fee would increase at an exponential rate for every year after that. This way companies that have a valuable copyrights could hold on to it for at least some time, but the vast majority of creative works would be converted to public domain within a reasonable time frame.
(I also think patents could work similarly, except that the exponential fees would start at say 3-5 years and with a fixed timelimit of 20 years after which the patent will expire.)
Re:Micky Mouse Copyright (Score:5, Interesting)
What we really need is a special copyright for Mickey and the rest of the Disney characters
so that The Walt Disney Company can stop lobbying to extend all copyrights.
I've said the same thing many times, but sadly it would never happen.
But suddenly you make me think of something that might work Reset all copyright terms back to something simple like 50 years from publication. BUT, you can extend the copyright for as long as you want for a payment each year of
$1 Million + $100,000 * years over 50 since publication , (in inflation adjusted dollars)
so $1M at year 50, $1.5M at 55, $2M at 60, and so on
If you have Winnie he Pooh, you can pay for as long is it makes sense to do so, if something has little value it will go into the public domain at 50 years.
The money collected for the copyright extensions can be first directed to scanning everything the Library of Congress or any other library has to be put online so that it really does go to the public domain.
Re:Micky Mouse Copyright (Score:5, Interesting)
Starting from year one the copyright costs $1 and doubles every year. So year 2 is $2, year 3 is $4, etc.
Re:I'm all for it (Score:5, Interesting)
I say start it immediately, at $1. Then double it each year. Math so simple, even Congress can understand it.
In a decade, it'll cost just over a grand a year. By two decades, it'll be costing over a million. Even 30+-year copyrights would be possible, if they were worth billions of dollars to whoever owned them.
This would also allow for near-immediate entry into the public domain of works by extinct companies. Abandonware would flourish - when a company goes bankrupt, unless their copyrights get bought up, their products would enter the public domain within a year.
Re:Micky Mouse Copyright (Score:5, Interesting)
they laughed about how needless yet simple it was to crush out and poison the public domain from which Walt's famous works initially sprang.
Incidentally, if you think Disney is done ripping off the public domain, then you've missed John Carter [wikipedia.org]. Wondering why on Earth Disney would create a film about a Civil War vet who is sent to Mars to save the Princess of Helium?
Because it's based on the now public domain A Princess of Mars [wikipedia.org].
Disney is, to this day, still profiting off the public domain, while refusing to allow anything they have made to ever enter it.
I'm sure you're all completely shocked to discover that. Completely.
Re:Are you crazy?!? (Score:5, Interesting)
Steamboat Willie, Mickey Mouse's first success, was a parody of Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill.
And this entire comment is taken from Lawrence Lessig's work Free Culture [authorama.com], let's hope he doesn't issue a DMCA takedown notice for this comment
Re:Please be satire (Score:5, Interesting)
As a parent of a gifted child, I've got to echo this sentiment. If your child is falling behind, there are lots of resources to help them catch up. Now there's nothing wrong with that, per sec, but if your child is craving more intellectual stimulation, you have virtually no recourse. (And, if your bored child starts acting up, your child could get labeled as a problem child when all they really need is more academic challenges.)