> Someone earlier asked the question, "Why can't the publishing industry just hurry up and die?"
I have a problem with copyright being transferable. The purpose of copyright is to encourage the creators. If you transfer a copyright or license it out, its term should get shortened dramatically. "Congratulations--you got a payout. Now make something new."
I have a problem with copyright outliving the author by very much. There will be no further output to incentivize, so why does the copyright persist?
I have a problem with multi-decade copyrights overall. I have a lot less problem with people asking for strong copyright enforcement if it only lasts 20 years.
I also have a problem with multi-decade copyright because it allows corporations to simply sit on works rather than licensing them because everybody is afraid that it might become popular and then they'll get fired--we've irretrievably lost movies and music because nobody would license them and then the vault they were sitting in burned.
I would be far more sympathetic to the "publishing industry" if they were an active opponent to the abusiveness of copyright law. Instead they are merely rent-seekers abusing the system.
> I have a problem with copyright being transferable. The purpose of copyright is to encourage the creators. If you transfer a copyright or license it out, its term should get shortened dramatically. "Congratulations--you got a payout. Now make something new."
That would devalue the copyright and creators would get compensated less. This also applies to a lesser extent to your other problems. Copyright outliving the author increases the value of the copyright even when the author still lives.
I also have many problems with copyright law as it stands now, but the problems are in the details, not in the principle of copyright being transferable, or of copyrights outliving the creators per se.
> That would devalue the copyright and creators would get compensated less. This also applies to a lesser extent to your other problems. Copyright outliving the author increases the value of the copyright even when the author still lives.
Um, tough?
The point of copyright isn't to create a perpetual rent ... it's to incentivize new creation.
For example, George R. R. Martin might actually finish his books rather than dragging them out as a meal ticket if the copyright only lasted 10 years past transfer (the moment where the TV show got posted). Or perhaps he might start a new series that might be better.
I'm not seeing the downside to society from giving creators incentive to produce rather than rent seek.
The rent seeking is effectively the incentive for new creation. By creating something, you can then rent seek to get compensated. Any reduction in the ability to rent seek is a reduction in compensation, and thus in the incentive.
There are quite literally millions of examples. Anyone who has a copyrighted work and has made money from it is an example.
There are absolutely valid questions around how much diminishing that compensation affects innovation, and around the marginal value of each year of copyright validity.
The way I envision it, there is a baseline of innovation. I.e. innovation that would occur with or without copyright. For each year added to copyright length, I assume that some amount of compensation to the copyrighter is added (although the marginal compensation likely follows a bell curve). There is also some degree of cost, as other people are unable to innovate on top of those copyrighted works.
I think we can both agree, there are people who innovate because of the potential compensation. There are also people who will not innovate because of the lack of compensation. The lack of investment and innovation in antibiotic medicines is a good example of this.
The question is the optimal balance between compensating people who innovate and allowing other innovaters to build on prior work.
No, millions of existing copyrighted works are not automatically examples of works which would not have been created without copyright. Compensation is also not synonymous with exclusive rights.
Academics have already calculated the optimal balance, in particular the optimal copyright term. It's probably in the region of the original 14 years instead of the current ~150.
https://rufuspollock.com/papers/optimal_copyright_term.pdf
I have a problem with copyright being transferable. The purpose of copyright is to encourage the creators. If you transfer a copyright or license it out, its term should get shortened dramatically. "Congratulations--you got a payout. Now make something new."
I have a problem with copyright outliving the author by very much. There will be no further output to incentivize, so why does the copyright persist?
I have a problem with multi-decade copyrights overall. I have a lot less problem with people asking for strong copyright enforcement if it only lasts 20 years.
I also have a problem with multi-decade copyright because it allows corporations to simply sit on works rather than licensing them because everybody is afraid that it might become popular and then they'll get fired--we've irretrievably lost movies and music because nobody would license them and then the vault they were sitting in burned.
I would be far more sympathetic to the "publishing industry" if they were an active opponent to the abusiveness of copyright law. Instead they are merely rent-seekers abusing the system.