Green Party on copyright

[Ziggurat]

And no one in this thread has argued to do away with copyright.....

But you've argued for restricting copyright in ways that don't actually make sense, and which would seriously inhibit the creation of copyrighted works. I said a lot more on the topic than just that brief quote, I had hoped you could do better in your response than this.

 

[ponderingturtle]

But you've argued for restricting copyright in ways that don't actually make sense, and which would seriously inhibit the creation of copyrighted works. I said a lot more on the topic than just that brief quote, I had hoped you could do better in your response than this.

What way do you think would do that?

Having copywite be limited to 26 years didn't stop content from being made in the past. There were TV shows and movies made before 1976 when it was capped at 56 years. WHy would those limits impede creators now?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/10/25/15-years-ago-congress-kept-mickey-mouse-out-of-the-public-domain-will-they-do-it-again/

 

[Darat]

But ...snip....

But let me stop you there, there is no "but" about it - I did not argue for doing away with copyright.

The only person who has brought that idea into this thread is yourself, so if you want to continue to argue against yourself feel free to do but don't expect me to join in.

 

[Ziggurat]

But let me stop you there, there is no "but" about it - I did not argue for doing away with copyright.

And I never said you did.

The only person who has brought that idea into this thread is yourself, so if you want to continue to argue against yourself feel free to do but don't expect me to join in.

Read the rest of that post. In particular, note this sentence:

But Darat's scheme would make it possible for production companies to lose all copyright protection at any moment. That's a massive risk, for basically no real benefit.

See that bit there? THAT is where I describe your position. Not the part you quoted. You have neither contested how I actually characterized your position, nor have you responded to my criticism of that position. You complain that I'm misrepresenting your position, but the truth is the reverse, you have misrepresented mine.

 

[Ziggurat]

What way do you think would do that?

I already indicated earlier in this thread that I thought the current period was too long, and that it should be shortened. But not to the point of immediately upon the death of the author.

Having copywite be limited to 26 years didn't stop content from being made in the past. There were TV shows and movies made before 1976 when it was capped at 56 years. WHy would those limits impede creators now?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/10/25/15-years-ago-congress-kept-mickey-mouse-out-of-the-public-domain-will-they-do-it-again/

I'm fine with those limits. I never suggested otherwise, and never claimed that they would seriously impede creators. But those aren't the limits Darat is proposing.

 

[Information Analyst]

There would be nothing stopping Disney continuing to make money from Mickey Mouse because he entered public domain.

Fairly recent Harper Collins commissioned various current writers (including Val MacDermid and Joanna Trollope - The horror! The horror!) to come up with new versions of various Jane Austen novels, the originals being very much in the public domain. Clearly they thought there was money to be made, even though any other publisher can effectively do the same thing.

 

[Brian-M]

It doesn't matter if the system is death-plus-fourteen years or death-plus-seventy years, I think the whole system of setting copyright expiration by the date of the author's death is absurd.

For starters, it makes copyright-lengths ridiculously variable. You could have two twenty-year-old authors each have a book published on exactly the same day, and end up with a period of eighty years where the copyright has expired on one book but not expired on the other. (Assuming one author dropped dead the day after the books were published, while the other lived to a hundred.)

It can also make it very difficult to determine exactly when copyright on a work expires, especially if the work and author are very obscure or if the work is a collaborative effort and you can't figure out exactly which people who were living in the area with names the same as the names on the list of authors at the time actually were the authors.

My personal preference would to have copyright set at a fixed length.

Ideally, the rule would be: Copyright expires 60 years after the work is first made available to the public, or 60 years after copyright ownership is no longer held by the person who created the work, whichever comes first.

(Death of the author counts as copyright ownership being no longer held by the author, as it is now held by his estate or heirs. There would be no need for special rules for company-produced works, because the people who created the work never hold the copyright, so it expires 60 years after creation, regardless of when it's made available to the public.)

There's no need to set it for life, 60 years is more than enough. If the work isn't profitable, then extending the copyright further would have no real benefit. If the work is profitable, then the copyright holder(s) would have received more than ample remuneration for the work by the time it expired.

Again, the idea of copyright is, nominally, for the author of a work to financially benefit from said protection. A dead person is well past the point of being able to create works, spend money, or otherwise derive any benefit from their creation(s)... indeed, they are past the point of being able to do, well, anything.

Let the offspring of the author create their own work rather than gaining benefit from the protection of a work they themselves played no part in creating.

I disagree. The point of copyright is to ensure that payment can be demanded for services rendered, where the service in question is the creation of creative works.

I don't see how it should matter whether or not the person who performed the service is still alive. As with any other service, if the person who provided the service dies before payment is made, payment is owed to the estate.

Let's say you had someone fumigate a building, with arrangements to have him send the bill to your company, and he dies on the way home after the fumigation is complete. Would you then say that you don't have to pay for this service, because the person who performed this service is dead?

No, you still owe the money.

Would you argue that if a farmer finishes harvesting this year's crop, but dies before it is sold, that the family isn't allowed to sell the crop, because they didn't grow it or harvest it? Would you say that they should be forced to give it away for free?

No, that would be absurd. You're taking a service without paying for it, which is effectively stealing. Sure, you're not stealing from the person who actually did the work, but you're stealing from his estate, you're stealing from his heirs.

But let's take a more apt analogy.

Let's say a man builds a private bridge (after receiving the necessary permits, ect) with the understanding that the law in that area grants private bridge-builders toll-rights for a certain amount of time (because the local authorities wish to encourage bridge-building), and he intends to use the toll money to support his family.

Now let's say the man dies. Would you then say that the family shouldn't be permitted to continue charging tolls on this bridge because the person who built it is dead? That if they wish to live off the money from a toll-bridge so they don't starve to death, they should go out and build their own bridge?

In this case, the toll-rights are similar to copyrights. The work was done in expectation of receiving payment (tolls or royalties) for this work. To say that payment can no longer be demanded because the person who did the work is dead would be stealing from the estate.

 

[Information Analyst]

Interesting ideas, Brian. The UK long drifted away from a "from creation/publication" model, although it was still used for photographs in the 1911 Copyright Act, and that protection was retained for existing works in the 1956 Act. The problem with a "from publication" model, though, is that while it makes it easier to ascertain if the work of an obscure author whose date of death is unknown is public domain or not, it create the reverse problem, whereby works by a known author will become public domain at different times.

To my mind the old system of death plus 50 years was a reasonable compromise, and the extension to 70 years in 1996 in itself was a step too far. It meant that many estates suddenly got a twenty year boost of revenue on top of an existing generous period, but more insidiously the copyright for authors who had died between 50 and 70 years previously were revived. The most notable example was Virginia Woolf. As she died in 1941, her works became public domain on 1 January 1992, but when the 1995 Regulation was introduced in 1996, they were suddenly copyrighted again, before finally becoming public domain once more on 1 January 2012!

 

[ponderingturtle]

I already indicated earlier in this thread that I thought the current period was too long, and that it should be shortened. But not to the point of immediately upon the death of the author.



I'm fine with those limits. I never suggested otherwise, and never claimed that they would seriously impede creators. But those aren't the limits Darat is proposing.

Then who in this threads actual suggestions are you responding to as being a threat to the ability of creative types to earn a living?

 

[Brian-M]

[...] it create the reverse problem, whereby works by a known author will become public domain at different times.

I don't see how that's a significant problem. You'd still know that all of the author's works will be out of copyright within 60 years after his death, and you just have to look at the copyright notice in the works themselves to see exactly when each work expires.

To my mind the old system of death plus 50 years was a reasonable compromise, and the extension to 70 years in 1996 in itself was a step too far.

I'm not sure that "death plus 50 years" is itself a reasonable compromise, as you end up with a lot of works that end up in copyright for more than a century.

Taking an example from my last post, an author who publishes a book at 20 and dies at 100. That's going to be in copyright for 130 years.

That still seems far too long to me.

A real-life example is the song "Happy Birthday". First published in 1912, it's copyright won't expire until 2030, that's 118 years of copyright.

So until 2030 people wanting to publicly perform "Happy Birthday" (or include it in a birthday scene in a TV show or movie) are still required to pay royalties to Warner/Chappell Music, even though everyone involved is long since dead.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Interesting ideas, Brian. The UK long drifted away from a "from creation/publication" model, although it was still used for photographs in the 1911 Copyright Act, and that protection was retained for existing works in the 1956 Act. The problem with a "from publication" model, though, is that while it makes it easier to ascertain if the work of an obscure author whose date of death is unknown is public domain or not, it create the reverse problem, whereby works by a known author will become public domain at different times.

To my mind the old system of death plus 50 years was a reasonable compromise, and the extension to 70 years in 1996 in itself was a step too far. It meant that many estates suddenly got a twenty year boost of revenue on top of an existing generous period, but more insidiously the copyright for authors who had died between 50 and 70 years previously were revived. The most notable example was Virginia Woolf. As she died in 1941, her works became public domain on 1 January 1992, but when the 1995 Regulation was introduced in 1996, they were suddenly copyrighted again, before finally becoming public domain once more on 1 January 2012!

What about countries with different copy write laws? So the pre 1976 US one of 56 years would often be shorter than the UK one of life +50. So works would be in the public domain in the US and not in the UK.

 

[Ron Swanson]

I think they should change their name

When I first heard of the "Green Party" I thought it was a pejorative term the other parties made up ... and that the "Green Party" was just about the money

 

[Axiom_Blade]

I think they should change their name

When I first heard of the "Green Party" I thought it was a pejorative term the other parties made up ... and that the "Green Party" was just about the money

When you hear the word "green" these days, most people think of the environment, not money. The last time I heard "green" associated with money was over a decade ago.

 

[Information Analyst]

I don't see how that's a significant problem. You'd still know that all of the author's works will be out of copyright within 60 years after his death, and you just have to look at the copyright notice in the works themselves to see exactly when each work expires.

Well, that might not necessarily be the case, depending on how posthumous publication is handled.

I'm not sure that "death plus 50 years" is itself a reasonable compromise, as you end up with a lot of works that end up in copyright for more than a century.

Taking an example from my last post, an author who publishes a book at 20 and dies at 100. That's going to be in copyright for 130 years.

That still seems far too long to me.

This real issue is why should a writer cease to get income from their work while they are still alive, say if they publish at 20 and live to more than 70? We don't do that with other property. At the same time there's a requirement to support anyone bereaved by the writer's death, especially "early." That's why there should be a reasonable compromise of a posthumous term.

A real-life example is the song "Happy Birthday". First published in 1912, it's copyright won't expire until 2030, that's 118 years of copyright.

So until 2030 people wanting to publicly perform "Happy Birthday" (or include it in a birthday scene in a TV show or movie) are still required to pay royalties to Warner/Chappell Music, even though everyone involved is long since dead.

There is, of course, currently an ongoing legal challenge to whether or not the song is still copyrighted in the US. Certainly it should expire after the end of next year in Europe.

I think it's important to bear in mind that copyright is important for the generality of cases, not for the extreme outliers like Happy Birthday, Mickey Mouse, etc. A lot of people think copyright is only about protecting substantial incomes to big corporations or rights holders, when the reality is that it's really about more modest sums going to creators that most people have never heard of.

 

[Information Analyst]

What about countries with different copy write laws? So the pre 1976 US one of 56 years would often be shorter than the UK one of life +50. So works would be in the public domain in the US and not in the UK.

Yes, this is true, and led to much confusion in the past. Current US legislation is more in line with that in the UK, although there is still a wide variation in how new rules were applied to existing works.

In the UK the principal had long been that changes did not apply retroactively. For example, under the 1911 Act photographs were covered for 50 years from creation. The 1956 Act changed this to 50 years from publication. Existing photographs taken before the 1956 Act became law (in 1957), however, were still covered by the 1911 Act terms. The same happened again when the rule was changed to photographer's life + 50 years in the 1988 Act; existing photographs were still covered by the 1911 or 1956 rules, depending on when they were taken.

This all changed with the 1995 Regulations, which bumped the term to 70 years and applied it retroactively, but only for phototgaphs that were still copyrighted when the new rules applied from 1 January 1996. In practical terms this meant that any photographs taken on or before 31 December 1945 are public domain (because they entered it at midnight on 31 December 1995, before the new rules came into effect), but anything taken on or after 1 January 1946 is protected until at least 1 January 2017.

 

[Information Analyst]

When you hear the word "green" these days, most people think of the environment, not money. The last time I heard "green" associated with money was over a decade ago.

And, of course, there are many places where "green" was not particularly associated wuith money in the first place, the UK included.

 

[Brian-M]

Well, that might not necessarily be the case, depending on how posthumous publication is handled.

That's partly why I included the clause about ownership of the copyright no longer being held by the person who created the work. If the author dies, or sells the work, or creates the work on behalf of an employer, then the copyright no longer belongs to them and the 60-year limit starts counting down regardless of when the work actually gets published.

This real issue is why should a writer cease to get income from their work while they are still alive, say if they publish at 20 and live to more than 70? We don't do that with other property.

Because we're not talking about physical property, we're talking about temporary rights granted by the state.

The real question is, why should these rights last a lifetime?

It's important to remember that these rights aren't limited to copies of the actual work itself, but they also extend to the characters and derivative works.

Which means that, for example, if someone writes a really good Twilight fan-fic, or their own Star-Wars novel, or a sequal to Lord of the Rings where Frodo's son ends up going on an adventure, they can't publish these works or even (legally) post them on the Internet for other people to read for free, without first getting permission from the copyright holders of the original works.

Keeping copyrights in place too long stifles exploration of new ways of looking at popular characters or universes.

Things like the new Sherlock Holmes series probably wouldn't exist if they had to get permission from the Doyle estate to create it. There are many really good books such as The Looking Glass Wars or Wicked which rewrite popular stories from a completely different perspective, as well as some rather absurd remakes such as Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.

These things only come about because the original works are in Public Domain.

Why should we have to wait until the original author has been dead for 50 or 70 years before we can create things like this?

If wanted to write and publish a Harry Potter prequel which tells the story of Tom Riddle's transition to Lord Voldemort, why should I have to wait until long after J.K. Rowling is dead and buried before I can do this? I'll be dead by that time too! Shouldn't it be enough to wait 60 years to be sure that she isn't going to write her own prequel?

At the same time there's a requirement to support anyone bereaved by the writer's death, especially "early." That's why there should be a reasonable compromise of a posthumous term.

That doesn't sound like the most reasonable compromise to me. Even if we did accept that copyright has to last for the entirety of the author's lifetime, wouldn't the better compromise be the author's lifetime concurrently with a minimum of 50 years, instead of the author's lifetime plus 50 years?

And what of works that the creator has sold the copyright for, or did on commission and so never owned the copyright for? Why should the copyright still be tied to the author's lifetime? What need is there to support the author's family when the family isn't receiving money from it any more?

A lot of people think copyright is only about protecting substantial incomes to big corporations or rights holders, when the reality is that it's really about more modest sums going to creators that most people have never heard of.

Which is why I suggested a fixed duration of 60 years. Minor works will be long out of print by that time, or returning effectively zero income, while popular works will have returned more than enough profit for the author.

I should point out that with even with a fixed duration of 60 years, the majority of an author's works will tend to remain in copyright until long after they're dead.

For example, Terry Pratchett was best known for writing a large number of highly popular Discworld novels. If we had a fixed 60 year copyright duration, the copyright on those novels wouldn't even begin to expire until 2043.

But as it stands, if you want to write your own Discworld novel, you're going to have to wait until 2065 or 2085 (depending on your local copyright laws).

Is supporting the author's family really an issue here, given that his daughter is an adult with a writing career of her own? She'll be dead of old age before the copyright on those novels expires (she'll be 108 in 2085).

 

[Information Analyst]

That's partly why I included the clause about ownership of the copyright no longer being held by the person who created the work. If the author dies, or sells the work, or creates the work on behalf of an employer, then the copyright no longer belongs to them and the 60-year limit starts counting down regardless of when the work actually gets published.

Because we're not talking about physical property, we're talking about temporary rights granted by the state.

The real question is, why should these rights last a lifetime?

Decoupling copyright duration from the life/death of the creator would cause just as many headaches in terms of determining whether something is or is not still protected. Any why shouldn't someone's creative work be protected in their own lifetime? If they're the person who created something, why should anyone else be allowed to exploit their creativity with impunity?

It's important to remember that these rights aren't limited to copies of the actual work itself, but they also extend to the characters and derivative works.

Which means that, for example, if someone writes a really good Twilight fan-fic, or their own Star-Wars novel, or a sequal to Lord of the Rings where Frodo's son ends up going on an adventure, they can't publish these works or even (legally) post them on the Internet for other people to read for free, without first getting permission from the copyright holders of the original works.

I think you'll find that the work of fan fiction has generally long been tolerated by rights holders, precisely because it rarely impacts on them commercially, and in many way represents free publicity. In some fandoms, the relationship between the unofficial and the official is positively symbiotic, with fan writers graduating to professional authroised status.

Keeping copyrights in place too long stifles exploration of new ways of looking at popular characters or universes.

Things like the new Sherlock Holmes series probably wouldn't exist if they had to get permission from the Doyle estate to create it. There are many really good books such as The Looking Glass Wars or Wicked which rewrite popular stories from a completely different perspective, as well as some rather absurd remakes such as Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.

You seem to be overlooking the fact that in the case of Holmes, co-operation with the estate being a necessity has be challenged only very recently, at least in the United States. In the case of the UK, Alice and Holmes have been in the public domain for 67 and 35 years respectively (I'm not sure what public domain works Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter might be based on).

These things only come about because the original works are in Public Domain.

Why should we have to wait until the original author has been dead for 50 or 70 years before we can create things like this?

This seems very grounded in recentism. People should be able to rip off the recent ideas of others, not the really old stuff. Except the really old stuff that does actually get used as the basis for derivitive works. Bit of a contradiction there.

If wanted to write and publish a Harry Potter prequel which tells the story of Tom Riddle's transition to Lord Voldemort, why should I have to wait until long after J.K. Rowling is dead and buried before I can do this? I'll be dead by that time too! Shouldn't it be enough to wait 60 years to be sure that she isn't going to write her own prequel?

Maybe you should rely on your own originality? Would you appropriate someone else's house or car, just because you can't acquire one on your own merits?

That doesn't sound like the most reasonable compromise to me. Even if we did accept that copyright has to last for the entirety of the author's lifetime, wouldn't the better compromise be the author's lifetime concurrently with a minimum of 50 years, instead of the author's lifetime plus 50 years?

I think expecting a total abolition of posthumous terms simply isn't going to happen. I think 70 is too much, 50 is about right, but wouldn't lose much sleep if it went down to 30. Nullifying copyright with the creator's death is a bit akin to saying someone's ownership of property ceases when they die. Can't see many people voting for that.

And what of works that the creator has sold the copyright for, or did on commission and so never owned the copyright for? Why should the copyright still be tied to the author's lifetime? What need is there to support the author's family when the family isn't receiving money from it any more?

Surely what someone does with their own property is their own affair? And what would happen if a writer sells their copyright at one point, but then somehow re-aquires it later?

Which is why I suggested a fixed duration of 60 years. Minor works will be long out of print by that time, or returning effectively zero income, while popular works will have returned more than enough profit for the author.

That's a very binary view - there's actually a whole range of other sales patterns - and varying levels of income generated for the creator - inbetween.

I should point out that with even with a fixed duration of 60 years, the majority of an author's works will tend to remain in copyright until long after they're dead.

For example, Terry Pratchett was best known for writing a large number of highly popular Discworld novels. If we had a fixed 60 year copyright duration, the copyright on those novels wouldn't even begin to expire until 2043.

But as it stands, if you want to write your own Discworld novel, you're going to have to wait until 2065 or 2085 (depending on your local copyright laws).

That sort of overlooks the fact that some successful franchises do result in authorised new works. James Bond, James Bourne, and Sherlock Holmes, for example, have all had official sequels after the deaths of their creators.

Is supporting the author's family really an issue here, given that his daughter is an adult with a writing career of her own? She'll be dead of old age before the copyright on those novels expires (she'll be 108 in 2085).

So again your judging the practicalities on the exceptions, rather than the rule.

 

[Brian-M]

Any why shouldn't someone's creative work be protected in their own lifetime?

It should be protected in their own lifetime, but not necessarily for their entire lifetime.

If I were to invent a silly character called Funny McBunny for the sake of a one-off children's story, is it really fair for for me to say "Hey, I created Funny McBunny, so nobody else is allowed to write their own Funny McBunny stories without my permission for the rest of my life"?

I don't think that's fair. What would be fair is to say "Hey, I invented Funny McBunny, so at least give me a few decades to make some money off of him before you start diluting the customer base with your own Funny McBunny stories".

If they're the person who created something, why should anyone else be allowed to exploit their creativity with impunity?

I'm not saying that anyone else should be allowed to exploit their creativity with impunity. I'm just saying that the product of their creativity shouldn't be overly protected via excessively long copyright durations.

I think you'll find that the work of fan fiction has generally long been tolerated by rights holders, precisely because it rarely impacts on them commercially, and in many way represents free publicity. In some fandoms, the relationship between the unofficial and the official is positively symbiotic, with fan writers graduating to professional authroised status.

Yes, posting fan-fiction is tolerated, and for very good reasons.

But "tolerated" is different from "legal", which was my point.

In the case of the UK, Alice and Holmes have been in the public domain for 67 and 35 years respectively

That was my point. Holmes, Alice, Oz. All public domain works, which makes it easier for writers to create a new works based on these highly iconic works of fiction without having to worry about legal entanglements or getting permission from the copyright holders.

If The Wizard of Oz was still in copyright, Wicked would probably never have been written, because the author couldn't be sure that the copyright holders would approve of his radically different take on the Oz series.

The same with The Looking Glass Wars. There's a good chance that it would never have been written if the original Alice stories were still copyright protected.

With current copyright laws, people often have to wait more than a century before similar reworking of new fiction can be done without legal complications, which in my opinion is too long. It's stifling creativity.

(I'm not sure what public domain works Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter might be based on).

My mistake. I was thinking of books like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, but then accidentally picked something in the same genre that wasn't really relevant to my point.

This seems very grounded in recentism. People should be able to rip off the recent ideas of others, not the really old stuff. Except the really old stuff that does actually get used as the basis for derivitive works. Bit of a contradiction there.

What?

First, I'm not saying that people shouldn't use old works as a basis for creating new works. I don't see how you could possibly get that impression from what I wrote.

Second, recent ideas? My proposal is that people would have to wait 60 years before they can use the characters and worlds of other authors without permission. How does 60 years old count as recent in a rapidly changing world such as ours? Would you say "Lord of the Flies" was recently written?

Consider past copyright laws. In Mark Twain's time, copyright only lasted for 40 years (assuming you remembered to renew it after 20). What I'm suggesting is that copyright should last 50% longer than it did under the old system, and with no renewal required.

Maybe you should rely on your own originality?

This isn't about "your own originality". Characters from well-known works of fiction acquire a prominent place in a culture, they become the focus of a wide variety of associations, expectations and emotions.

For example, if you write a story featuring Loki as the main character, straight away the readers have expectations and feelings about Loki based on how Loki is perceived within current culture.

This allows the author to subvert, challenge and explore the reader's perceptions and preconceptions of the character in a more meaningful way than they could if the story was about a freshly created trickster God with which the reader was entirely unfamiliar.

Overly-long copyright laws limits this type of creative exploration of existing characters to those created in the distant past.

Would you appropriate someone else's house or car, just because you can't acquire one on your own merits?

That's not a suitable analogy.

A closer analogy would be using some of the design ideas that someone else used in creating their house or car when creating your own house or car, because you thought they were good design features that would complement the completely original design features you're using to create your own house or car.

I think expecting a total abolition of posthumous terms simply isn't going to happen. I think 70 is too much, 50 is about right, but wouldn't lose much sleep if it went down to 30. Nullifying copyright with the creator's death is a bit akin to saying someone's ownership of property ceases when they die. Can't see many people voting for that.

How is saying "property ownership ceases when 50 years has passed and the owner is dead" any more silly than saying "property ownership ceases 50 years after death"?

They're both silly, which is why I'm suggesting a fixed-length duration for intellectual property rather than a death-based duration.

But it's slightly misleading to refer to it as property, (even though "intellectual property" is the correct term), because when people think of property they usually think of physical things, such as a TV or house, not a temporary monopoly on a creative work.

Surely what someone does with their own property is their own affair?

Yes, it's their own affair.

But once they've sold the copyright, it no longer has any connection to them, so basing the duration of the copyright on the length of their lifetime is rather absurd.

And what would happen if a writer sells their copyright at one point, but then somehow re-aquires it later?

The same thing that would happen if someone else acquires the copyright. I don't understand the point of this question.

That's a very binary view - there's actually a whole range of other sales patterns - and varying levels of income generated for the creator - inbetween.

Such as?

The possibilities for a fixed-length 60-year copyright are...

1. The work was profitable during the first 60 years, and so there's no need to enforce copyright any more, because the creator has already received sufficient compensation for the effort expended in creating it.

2. The work was unprofitable during the first 60 years, and this doesn't look like it's going to change, so there's no need to enforce copyright any more, because it's not going to produce any significant amount of money in what little time the creator has left to live.

3. The work was unprofitable during the first 60 years, but suddenly the money is about to start flooding in, so it's important to keep the copyright in place so that even though the creator is probably dead and his children have probably passed retirement age, they'll still be able to benefit from this unexpected windfall.

Are you seriously suggesting that this third possibility is something we should take into consideration when creating copyright law?

Or is there some other option that I haven't thought of? If so, please let me know.

That sort of overlooks the fact that some successful franchises do result in authorised new works. James Bond, James Bourne, and Sherlock Holmes, for example, have all had official sequels after the deaths of their creators.

I'm not overlooking that at all. All these things require getting permission from the new copyright holders (who will almost certainly want to charge a licensing fee), which is a huge disincentive for independent authors.

Is supporting the author's family really an issue here, given that his daughter is an adult with a writing career of her own? She'll be dead of old age before the copyright on those novels expires (she'll be 108 in 2085).

So again your judging the practicalities on the exceptions, rather than the rule.

Huh?

Are you living in a world where authors living to old age is the exception rather than the rule?

Authors dying at a young age with dependant spouse and children who require royalties from their works in order to survive is the exception, not the rule.

I'm just pointing out that saying copyright should continue to apply X years after the author's death in order to cater for this doesn't make much sense when this situation is uncommon. It especially doesn't make sense that this situation would be given as a reason for rejecting a fixed length copyright term when a fixed length copyright term would also ensure that any dependants could still live off the royalties after the creator dies.

But in the situation where the creator doesn't die young (ie, most of the time), saying copyright should continue to apply X years after the author's death results in the copyright on the author's earlier works lasting for far too long.

For example, the death plus 70 year copyright rule popular in some countries would mean that if an author lives to 100, than a work he created at the age of 20 would be protected by copyright for a total of 150 years. In my opinion, that's far, far too long.

But if we had a fixed-length copyright of 60 years, the copyright on a work he created at 20 would expire when he turned 80, and by that point he'll have long since moved on to other projects, and so it won't matter in the slightest that it has expired.

 

[Information Analyst]

I might be wrong, but it seems that you're far more interested in the "rights" of those who would base their works on the previous creativity of others, rather that the latter. If someone really wants to riff on a previous still-copyrighted work, there are plenty of ways to work around it, and I don't think it's particularly onerous that being absolutely explicit about say, a character being exactly the same one as in a previous work, is a step too far (cf. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen).

For my own areas of work, it would be great if certain copyright terms were different or lower than they are, but I don't feel particularly constrained by either having to work around them, or else actually paying or seeking permisson to use material that is not yet public domain. If a rights holder - corporate or individual - wants too much or denies permission, then it doesn't get used, but I don't lose any sleep over it.