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Originally Posted by HarryT
There are many people who make books freely available without looking for payment (my humble self included), but there are a heck of a lot more that are only available because publishers keep them in print. You seem to be suggesting that it's some kind of "crime" to publish public domain works for a profit. It's not - the whole point of the public domain is that it encourages reproduction of the work by any and all means. There's nothing wrong with publishing for profit - it's what keeps books in print.
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Copyright exists because people tried to make a profit from authors works without giving them anything in return. If this wouldn't be the case then the publishers could only make money from the authors that are writing now and put effort into that.
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Originally Posted by murraypaul
Why? What harm is done?
Water is available to everyone (in 1st world countries), yet people make money selling bottled water, why is that less ridiculous?
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It isn't any less ridiculous. And the harm comes from the fact that people get deprived of what should be free to them. Can homeless people in 1st world countries get access to free water?
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Originally Posted by TheJohnNewton
I say keep it simple. Forget variables like date of death or optional renewals. Make it publication date plus some period, say 20 years. That way you only need to know one thing, the publication date, to figure the public domain date and it's consistent for every book. You can quibble on the period (10? 20? 30? years) but choose a period that covers most of the profit for most books and call it a day. Sure there will be exceptions where a book becomes popular after the period or continues to be popular after but those will be rare cases that will have little to no effect on motivating authors.
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If a book becomes popular after 20 years, it's only a problem for the author if they didn't write anything after that. Otherwise having one book free could only benefit the author because readers could easily try their work. It has been repeatedly pointed out that readers are willing to pay a higher price to get the book faster so I don't think that there are many that will decide to wait 20 years to get a book for free.
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Originally Posted by JSWolf
I would change that a little. I would go for 40 years but only if the author is dead. If the author is alive after 40 years, it doesn't become PD until the author dies.
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This is exactly what Angst said. Did you miss the part about "whichever is greater"?
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Originally Posted by niggle
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And again the publishers are the ones that caused the need for copyright.