Quote:
Originally Posted by pietrocrazy
This is probably the single biggest problem with copyright as it stands. Something like 95% of all books are out-of-print. Only the most popular or most recent books are available to buy print editions of (not including used books, of course). In the future, with most books being released in ebook format as well as print, this will change. But what about the gigantic back catalog of books that are out of print but won't be in the public domain for another 50-100 years? Society is really losing out by not having access to these books! |
This is why I think the copyright should be based on a set number of years (say 70 years) from the date the publication was originally released with no renewal option is the best way to go. The reason I think 70 years is a reasonable number of years is that it's essentially the life of the author but removes the variable of the life of the author. As an example, the copyright on a book would expire when the author reaches 90 years of age if he/she originally released the book at the age of 20. This should give the author time to fully benefit from their work.
This would give each book a firm date when it would enter the public domain, and make it easy to determine if a book is in the public domain. It would also deal with the issue of orphan works, if it were applied to all previously existing orphaned works.