You're free to release your own work with Creative Commons License (or any other license that shorten the copyright).

> Copyright is a monopoly that the government creates on purpose

Creative work takes a lot of effort and resources (ex: movie production, games, books (hello Knuth)) and can be easily copied/imitated in a digital age.

It you think copyright should be shorter to everyone, then inheriting something valuable shouldn't be a thing as well?

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chii 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> It you think copyright should be shorter to everyone, then inheriting something valuable shouldn't be a thing as well?

inheritance has nothing to do with copyright. Financial assets are not monopolies. Copyright is only a valuable asset because of the granted monopoly on copying/distribution.

Therefore, to reduce the value copyright has (as it currently does seem to have too much), reducing the granted terms should be sufficient. Like patents, a good 20 years seems like a sufficiently long time to recover cost of production, while letting people who are currently alive to produce derivatives of it afterwards.

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achempion an hour ago | parent [-]

Why you want to reduce value of creative work, but not a value of other assets? I think copyright should be as long as ownership of any other asset.

If I spend $20m on building a house or creating a computer game, why house can be inherited indefinitely and creative work is not? I would have a monopoly on this specific building and on this specific creative work, but anyone is free to build/create anything else.

If J. Rowling created Harry Potter universe, why her family can't own it indefinitely? We somehow accept this notion for other assets, but treat copyright differently.

p.s. creative work is more valuable as it has something that money can't buy (authenticity, taste, sincerity, etc)

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modeless a minute ago | parent | next [-]

> why house can be inherited indefinitely and creative work is not

Because copying houses is inherently expensive, while copying creative work is inherently free. To make creative works act like houses you have to add artificial cost to copying, which is a tax the public has to pay for the entire duration of copyright. If the public has to pay a tax they should get something out of it, and that something is the incentive for authors to create new works. But does copyright have to be life + 70 in order to incentivize new works? Clearly not! It could be much shorter while still providing plenty of incentive.

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

>If I spend $20m on building

Why don't the builders get infinite royalties on use of that house? Wouldn't that also be reasonable. At least as long as it stands. I don't think that would be unfair comparison.

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achempion an hour ago | parent [-]

> Why don't the builders get infinite royalties on use of that house

They do, some build to rent indefinitely or sell to other who rent out the property.

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Ekaros an hour ago | parent [-]

I mean the actual workers. I do not get royalty checks for the building I helped on during one summer. Homeowners don't send monthly money to workers that build their house or renovated it.

	▲	achempion an hour ago \| parent [-]
		It's the same in creative work creation, no? Filming crew / game devs don't own any copyright and property rights. They explicitly give it up under contract/hiring terms.

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californical 42 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Her family can own their copies of Harry Potter forever.

But copyright restricts others from building on top of previous works. Can her family forever sue anyone into poverty for naming a wizard “Harry”? Does that even make sense in 100 years from now when most people have never heard of Harry Potter anymore?

For your building analogy, it would be more like the builders created your building there, and now you own it. It has a red roof and blue shutters. And also the government passed a law that said nobody else can own a building ever again with a red roof and blue shutters, otherwise you, the owner of the idea of those colors, can take possession of every new building like that.

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