The creator is not the only person to consider here. We don't grant copyrights just to give creators a funny kind of royalty-pension they can pass to their heirs. We grant copyrights to encourage production of new works for the benefit of the public. Copyright ultimately must be judged on how well it serves the public benefit, not on how much power or wealth it gives to authors directly (at the expense of others).

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kolinko an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Did you ever publish anything? First year or two it is mostlu pushing marketing/pr, and the long tail of trickle of money is where the true earnings lie. Also, for many works of art it takes more than 2 years to produce a next piece, and even if it was less, it’s not sure if it will actually sell.

Anything below 5-10 years and you have literal starving authors. Anything less than 5 and you may as well abolish it altogether.

	▲	pydry 39 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		we have literal "starving authors" - they pretty much all need second jobs to survive. for the authors themselves I don't see much difference between having no copyright at all and being thrown a few pennies on their work from amazon. whereas the future jk rowlings of the world will still buy lottery tickets to fame and fortune whether or not she is worth $20 million or $1 billion.

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t43562 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'd rather give it to individuals than corporations at least. It's useful as a lever to protect the weak from the powerful. Perhaps it should simply not be transferable? Another alternative would be for its power to weaken over time in some way.

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kolinko an hour ago | parent [-]

Then you will prevent corporations from paying authors to create work altogether.

	▲	r-w an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		You don't think they would still pay them for the right to publish, if not ownership of the copyright itself?
	▲	exe34 an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		They can still sell the stuff for 10-20 years and make a huge profit. They just can't use it for multi-generational runaway growth.

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dageshi an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We live in a world where there is an absolute abundance of art, music, novels. You can find it everywhere, huge amounts of it either free or very cheaply.

In what way is the system as it exists currently failing to encourage the creation of new works?

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modeless an hour ago | parent [-]

It encourages creation of new works just fine, but at the expense of creating billions of tiny monopolies that last for generations, which get aggregated into huge monopolies, ultimately making ordinary people into criminals for wanting to preserve or modify the works that make up their culture.

My point is that it doesn't need to do that. Copyright could still encourage creation of new works with a much shorter duration, without the downside of locking our culture up in monopolies for life + 70.

	▲	dageshi an hour ago \| parent [-]
		None of that contravenes the purpose of copyright in encouraging the creation and sharing of new works. You could equally solve the issue by providing provisions for archival. Or a provision that requires a work to be freely available for sale. The creator having a monopoly on the work seems to me to encourage the creation and sharing of work as intended.

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t-writescode an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> We grant copyrights to encourage production of new works for the benefit of the public

Which includes giving creators royalty rights that can be passed on to their heirs, so the elder author can finish their manuscript on their deathbed as a gift to their family.

	▲	modeless an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Congress has currently chosen a duration of life + 70, but my point is that it's absurdly far beyond anything necessary to encourage the production of new works. When you consider the costs of copyright monopolies to the public, it's clearly out of whack. As I said, the majority of revenue from copyrighted works happens in the first couple of years of release.
	▲	exe34 an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Has this ever happened, or is it a scenario you made up in your mind? I know a few great works were published posthumously, but most of these were because somebody thought it was really important to share, not because it was a golden goose they wanted to start... milking.

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jonathanstrange 5 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

He was arguing against two years. A lifetime is fine.

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bigstrat2003 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> We don't grant copyrights to give authors a kind of royalty-based pension for their old age and their heirs.

"We" is doing a lot of work here. I realize that it's basically impossible for an entire population to have coherent motivations, but I support copyright because I think artists have the right to control what happens with their work and to sell it if they can. I believe that this right extends, like all rights, until the end of the author's life. I don't really care one bit about encouraging the production of new works.

	▲	chii an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> until the end of the author's life. which is too long, and also too short - what about authors who wrote finished their book on their deathbed? Then their rights are shorter than someone young - an unfair discrimination. That's why age should be irrelevant. Copyright is useful, and should be granted. However, current copyright grants last far too long - age plus some years beyond. Not to mention corporations lobbying to increase the length right as some copyrights for some works are about to enter public domain. Therefore, copyright should be granted for a single period and end - like patents. 20 years seems to be a good middle ground, but i could hear arguments for slightly longer or shorter.
	▲	modeless an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		How about "We the people", as stated in the Constitution? The Constitution itself defines the purpose of copyright, and it is not the purpose you state.