Quote:
Originally Posted by pdurrant
I agree that copyright length is far too long. If we could reduce it to (50 years or life of author, whichever is longer) I'd be happy, and that certainly wouldn't affect the production of literaru and other works.
Even limiting copyright to a fixed term of (say) 25 years would be OK by me, and probably wouldn't affect the creation of literary and other copyright works.
But I feel copyright length is a separate issue to unauthorised copying of copyright material.
Paul
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They are interwined. If I make a copy of say, James Branch Cabell's
Figures Of Earth published in 1921, it's been legal since 1976. If I make a copy of James Branch Cabell's
The High Place, published in March 1923, I'm a crook, and will be one if I do it until 2054 (US -JBC died in 1958, life + 95 + next year boundary = 2054). That's a 78 year difference for 18 month's printing difference. And there's no guarantee that it won't get extended again.
So people who might be supportive of a reasonable copyright length may (and often do) throw up their hands in frustration and "pirate" everything, new and old. You know the old saw, "you might as well be hanged for ram as for a sheep". The result is massive civil disobence.
Now, you might get better moral justification, with a much shorter copyright period. Might not, but the current system is morally bankrupt. And the masses, for once, have an effective way to fight back. And they are doing so, and it won't stop as long as the technology exists to do it with.