Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephanos
I've never gotten a good answer to the question of why patents expire after 20 years or so but copyrights last for the lifetime of the creator plus 70 years. I suspect it is because people wouldn't tolerate waiting a hundred years or more for a lifesaving drug or device that improves everyone's life to enter the public domain. In other words, the category of creations that is more important gets a shorter protection span.
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Here you go. A patent is used by a business as a tool of production. while a business can make good money off of a patent (through sale or license) just by owning it, But at the same time, other patents often have to be licensed to use the first patent effectively. That forces a dynamic - does it cost the business more to hold it's patent for a long time, and pay for other patents for a long time; or hold a short time and get the advantage of the other patents going into public domain. Generically, businesses have found that a relative short length best fulfills business usage. (Most of the time, you make the majority of your money from patent/copyright in a few years) They sacrifice the "long tail" for getting the rest of the world's "long tail" for free.
Copyright does not have that dynamic. A creator of copyright does not gain by other copyrights going into the public domain, so they are not willing to sacrifice the "long tail" (which costs the copyright holder <nothing> to maintain, unlike patents which cost money to maintain) for every last perceived penny. That's why RIAA/MPAA work so hard to maintain and extend copyright. If they had to pay a fee on an ongoing basis to keep their copyright, or (hypothetically) had to pay a patent fee to obtain/maintain a copyright, the length would shrink fast. Example - musician Les Paul invented and patented the electric guitar pickup. He got a royalty on every electric guitar made until the patent expired. If he could have gotten a royalty on all copyrighted music created using his invention, would there be a demand to keep the performances in copyright forever? I don't think so.
If you really want to solve the "copyright problem", tax copyrights. Why not? We tax all other forms of real property...