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Old 07-27-2014, 11:33 AM   #5
pwalker8
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Lot's of interesting points, some of which I would consider as arguments why we _shouldn't_ allow copyright after death, though it wasn't presented that way in the program.

The point that I thought the best was something said at the end, when one of the interviewees mentioned something along the lines of after a certain amount of time just have a limited copyright. Allow anyone to use the material, but you have to pay some sort of royalty to the author's estate. That is a compromise that I could support to replace the current copyright laws. Simply give the author unlimited copyright for 27 years, then anyone can copy the material, but they have to pay a royalty fee to the author or estate. We should probably assign the collection and enforcement to some sort of author's guild (kind of like the way radio pays to play various songs).

Some of the other points that I though was interesting was the apparent fact that in the UK author's executors can pretty much control biographies (and presumably other such material) by denying someone the right to quote material. In the US, I believe this is considered a fair use exemption of copyright but maybe biographies are a bit more complex than that.

I actually agree with Tubemonkey on the don't protect by destruction. I'm a big believer in privacy and I don't believe that the public at large has any particular right to know that some famous author was bi or had personal believes that we now consider unsavory. On the other hand, if you wrote it in a letter to someone, then I also don't think you have a right to block the publication of that letter.
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