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Originally Posted by tubemonkey
Then why should that principle only be available at some future point in time? If a work has that much value, shouldn't it go into public domain immediately?
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Per the Constitution of the United States, the point of a copyright is to encourage people to produce works and publish them (i.e., the clause about promoting the useful arts in the Constitution). We provide the originator of a work a limited period of copyright to give them a reason to produce the work and publish it. Considering how many works are published annually in the United States, it seems that copyright is successful in encouraging people to write and publish. Hence why works don't immediately enter the public domain.
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Be that as it may, he lived under a different set of laws.
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Right, but my point is that perpetual copyright will have a harmful effect on the development of culture.
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Profit for the copyright holders. That's the whole point.
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Then start paying me $20 a month for the rest of my life. Why? For my profit.
I have no objection to making sure the author of a work profits from the work they have produced. However, an accident of birth should not provide someone with an immediate right to collect profits. Even someone who inherits a major corporation has to work to ensure it remains profitable; not so with the inheritor of the right copyright.
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Then the book dies and life marches on.
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And copyright has failed to fulfill one of its primary purposes.
Lets remember that the vast majority of books are essentially out of print with in 10 years of publication. Now hopefully ebooks will change this situation somewhat. But it gets complicated if after a given publisher's contract expires they have to negotiate with 20 grandchildren all who might have differing demands about a book. Even worse after a couple of generations, it might literally become impossible to track down everyone who has inherited a stake in a book. Even with life +70 years it is often difficult to track down everyone who owns a share of the rights.
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Bill