| ▲ | edent 7 hours ago |
| "Up to death" would provide a perverse incentive for people to kill creators in order to liberate something from copyright. |
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| ▲ | kibwen 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Taking the death date into account is literally already how prevailing copyright law works. You can just make it conditional on publish date. |
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| ▲ | edent 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Sure, but Life + 70 means it is unlikely that anyone will benefit from the death soon. | | |
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| ▲ | benj111 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| TBF there's currently a massive perverse incentive in that we want to encourage creators to create, but then allow the successful ones to retire making money from past works. |
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| ▲ | nullc 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The inheritors are in a better position to kill the author-- or just allow them to die from neglect-- and are incentivized to do so by postmortem profits. Any benefit from the work being public domain is diffuse, it won't create a windfall for any particular party. The residuals on the other hand are quite concrete, particularly when an author's preferences are capping the market for their work or when the publicity of their death will create newfound popularity. |
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| ▲ | toast0 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > The inheritors are in a better position to kill the author-- or just allow them to die from neglect-- and are incentivized to do so by postmortem profits. An estate tax of 100% would eliminate this moral hazard; but the estate tax is already unpopular when its exemption amount means that few estates pay any tax. > Any benefit from the work being public domain is diffuse, it won't create a windfall for any particular party. A defendant in a copyright infringement case would have a windfall if the copyright was extinguished as a result of an untimely death. | |
| ▲ | Supermancho 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > The inheritors are in a better position to kill the author-- or just allow them to die from neglect-- and are incentivized to do so by postmortem profits. This is true now, with or without copyright reform. If the author fears, they can make a will or trust, just like it is today. Not sure why this consideration would factor as a negative signal. | |
| ▲ | pyuser583 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The distinction between author and their estates is fascinating: the stereotype is estates mismanaging the art, but that usually happens because the estates want to be “artistic” themselves. Most artists are terrible at business. They do dumb things for no reason. JRR Tolkein and his estate is prime example. JRR signed away all movie rights for a nominal sum. His estate fought tooth and nail for their rights, while still allowing grey zone stuff to develop (Dungeons and Dragons). | | |
| ▲ | jandrese 24 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Imagine what a better world we would live in if the Tolkien estate was able to kill D&D in the cradle as they would have liked... /s |
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| ▲ | cubefox 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Maybe 100 years after birth instead. |
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| ▲ | cestith 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That’s a disincentive to authors in their later years if it’s a straight rule. We’d need something like a minimum of 20 years or up to their 100th birthday or something. | | |
| ▲ | notarobot123 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Imagine being in the last phase of life and finding your only motivation to create or share anything is the opportunity to extract as much value from society as possible. | | |
| ▲ | kube-system 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Many people find motivation to give to their heirs in their last phase of life. |
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| ▲ | notarobot123 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | This isn't a bad idea. It would prevent the constant recycling of copyrighted works and bias the creative economy towards newer works. It seems the bias is in the other direction at the moment. |
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| ▲ | Xmd5a 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| [flagged] |
