Quote:
Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer
I'm a fan of shorter copyright terms, but copyright renewal requirements don't work; they impose a compliance burden on copyrightholders, and then impose another burden when trying to figure out if the copyright is up or not. Organizations simply won't bother with the cost of determining if the copyright has been renewed or not in most cases, and avoid making the book available. The effect, in a lot of cases, is the same as if there was no renewal requirement and simply a longer copyright term.
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Really? That system worked fine in the United States for something like 150 years. Fixed terms with renewal actually make it far easier to determine if a book is still under copyright. Lets say I write a book and I wanted it copyrighted. In the United States, I simply contact the Library of Congress and register the book. Then 10 years later (or 14, or 20, or 50 years later), I have to reregister if I want the copyright to continue. When copyright is renewed or registered, require the author to indicate who the rights should devolve to upon their death.
If I am a publisher, it becomes very simple to determine whether a book is still under copyright. I simply contact the Library of Congress and they tell me. If it is under copyright, I know exactly who to contact (and presumably their basic contact info) in order to publish a book.
Under the current system, they first have to determine if the author is alive or dead. If he is dead, when he died, and then they have to track down whoever inherited the rights to the book. This is often a non-trivial task which is why many books are considered orphan works.
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Bill