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Originally Posted by Hrafn
Except in the special case of a non-renewable resource (clearly not applicable here), monopolies are always a bad thing. This is why monopolies and market power tend to be subjected to government regulation. Sometimes however they are a necessary evil (e.g. because a market is a ntural monopoly, or as is the case here, because some sort monopoly is necessary to create investment).
NO. The monopoly covers all works not covered by some 'copy left' license. This is why there are so much fewer books from after the lengthening of copyright available today compared to before it was lengthened. This is part of the dead-weight loss, and happens regardless of whether there is one big monopoly or thousands of small ones. In fact it could actually be worse under thousands of little ones, due to the search costs of finding which tiny monopoly to license from.
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You are grouping everything that is covered by copyright as one huge monopoly - which is a very strange definition that would appear to cover absolutely everything. "Oh yes, it's a monopoly that's run by millions of independent people selling their own thing independently, getting paid separately and competing with one another for sales." Are you sure that matches the dictionary definition?
In fact, what copyright right does is create a vast number of tiny monopolies. Each individual item covered by copyright is its own separate monopoly that has no impact on any of the other monopolies, nor on anyone else's right to create their own monopoly by creating their own original work.
But you are right about so many copyright monopolies carrying its own cost. One of the reasons why copyright is structured as it is (automatic and of some defined duration), is to make it self-tracking as far as possible. The system is not perfect (copyright ownership becoming lost etc.), but registration systems in the past have not been perfect either. Publishers these days are required to submit a copy of published works to relevant state and/or federal libraries, and while this is not a registration system as such, it does mean that there is less chance of works being completely lost.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hrafn
I take leave to doubt that, after two or more decades of writing, many authors are making a decisively significant proportion of their royalties from earlier decades. [...]
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Everyone is entitled to their opinion, even if that opinion is not substantiated by research or experience. There are a great many different situations, from books that sell in huge numbers when they first came out, to books that may not be recognised for years, to some that are part of a much longer spread of interest. For example
The Game of Thrones is not far off twenty years old now (and he's been writing the series for over twenty years), and the series isn't even finished yet.
(I've said this before, but not yet had a satisfying answer: ) I find it difficult to see the demands for brief copyright as anything more than some strange idea that we are somehow entitled to these things for nothing, and I wonder where that sense of entitlement comes from. I am pleased to be able to pick up copies of books by Charles Dickens (for example) that I didn't already have on my shelf, but to me this is like some sort of bonus, I don't feel as though I have some sort of natural right to it.