Quote:
Originally Posted by QuantumIguana
Many of the most beloved classics are in the public domain. If copyright is eternal, books die, they will simply disappear into limbo. An obscure public domain book might be rediscovered, but a book that sits in an eternal limbo will not.
One major reason that so many groups do Shakespeare's plays is that they are in the public domain. Shakespeare may very well have been utterly forgotten were it not for the public domain.
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That, of course, is the thing that most copyright forever people don't consider. The vast majority of works earn their money within the first year or two of being published. After that, they get shoved off the bookstore shelves by something else. For most authors, the issue isn't that they aren't getting paid for pirated works, it's that most people have forgotten their works even existed.
Sure Mickey and company will continue to be pushed by Disney Inc for a very long time, mostly for theme park purposes (when was the last movie with Micky Mouse?) But what other works actually make money after 20 years? Should the exception set the rules?
We would be a lot better off with a Mickey Mouse exception, i.e. if you think your copyright is worth it, then you can pay some fee each year to have it extended, otherwise it's 20 years and that's it.