Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephanos
I've never gotten a good answer to the question of why patents expire after 20 years or so but copyrights last for the lifetime of the creator plus 70 years. I suspect it is because people wouldn't tolerate waiting a hundred years or more for a lifesaving drug or device that improves everyone's life to enter the public domain. In other words, the category of creations that is more important gets a shorter protection span.
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Patents and copyrights are very different things. What follows is very much a layperson's perspective, I have no legal grounding for these thoughts.
Typically a patent only applies to portion of what you will see in an end product (perhaps only a very small portion, there often many patents in involved in any one product). A patent covers an invention or process that is used in the manufacture of goods, and as such often invokes a direct public interest in its availability. For many inventions it can be argued that someone else would have got there eventually, often very soon (and there are many examples of two or more coming to the same result at close to the same time). Together these argue for reduced protection in order that public interest is best served.
Copyright applies to a completed item. It does not cover the concepts or ideas that may be presented in that item. It is highly unlikely that anyone else would have come up with an identical (for copyright purposes) item. As such it is difficult to argue exactly what public interest will be served by reducing protection to any extent that may reduce the incentive for a creator to publish their work.
With books in particular there is a very large cost (time and money) involved in going from the raw first draft to the final published work. Without significant incentive an artist may well choose to leave the first draft the drawer (and many do, even famous authors). How is the public interest served by discouraging publication? The period of protection is, of course, up for argument, but keep in mind that only a small percentage of authors become best sellers. Many books will never see a return on their time investment, many won't even recoup the direct cash outlay in their production.
Previously it has been argued that books no longer being available is a problem and so "public interest" is served by limiting the period of copyright. As I noted above, ebooks and print-on-demand are reducing the impact of the "out of print" argument. If the book remains available, what "public interest" still exists to remove copyright protection? (I'm not trying to argue for unlimited periods of copyright, I don't believe that is necessary, but it is difficult to see how the public actually benefits from removal of copyright (if the book remains available) other than getting their free-lunch if they're will to wait for it.)