[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

You are being too idealistic. I think that creative efforts would not be encouraged, but rather a repackaging of existing works instead of developing new ideas.

There'd be that, too. (In addition to, not instead of.) Again: jobs + money changing hands = better for the economy. It'd be small amounts of money going to thousands or millions of tiny businesses, instead of larger amounts only going to Disney.

Monopolies are bad for the economy; they're only permitted when there's some overwhelming benefit to allowing them. "Encourage creative productivity" is a reasonable benefit--but there's *no* indication that copyright lengths over 50 years are necessary for that.

Super cheap merchandising of Disney icons by everybody and his dog would make it all worthless.

What's the "it" in that sentence?

And no value will be created for society anymore. As it is in here in Asia already --- in most Asian countries nobody cares about copyrights!

And no new novels or songs are being created? No movies are being made? The publishing industry is reserved for books previously published elsewhere?

Opening copyright won't end schlock reproduction--but it will make them subject to quality standards in the open market. And it *would* open a large array of creative possibilities that are currently locked down.

Are we better off waiting another 70 years for the sequel to Salilnger's book to be released in the US? Is Salinger's lock on his book somehow enhancing society's literary culture?

Creativity means new ideas, not just slight variations on existing themes. You would just be encouraging people to rehash existing ideas over and over again.

Like Disney's been doing for the last century, grabbing Grimm's Fairy Tales rather than paying anyone to come up with a new story?

If you feel that rehashing existing works is pointless, why teach the classics at all?

The only thing I can fully agree on is the education part -- but I am sure that corporations like Disney like to have their characters used in educational materials.

Disney doesn't like their characters to be used as examples of sexism, racism, and classism.

Now as for books, that is quite a different story, there is no great advantage to keeping those under copyright for too long.

Are you arguing that Disney should keep its copyrights indefinitely, to keep us from wasting time on frivolous derivatives, but books should be open after 50 years because we'd get real creative use out of those?

I don't particularly care if Disney gets its copyrights forever. I'd *really* like a requirement to re-register after a certain number of years (say, 20 or so), so that works--books, movies, plays, photographs, magazines, etc.--that aren't being groomed for specific commercial purposes are released to the public.