Quote:
Originally Posted by speakingtohe
My opinion (and it is only an opinion), is many who decry copyright seek to benefit from using or obtaining at no cost, currently popular works, and if copyright was lowered to 50 years the demands would be for 25, then 10 etc.
And if most of the successful writers of the last century managed under the
restrictions without the world falling into cultural poverty, why can't those of today? It's not like everybody is using Shakespeare or Dickens etc. as a springboard even though they can.
Helen
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Just to clarify, no one in this thread is arguing (right now) that copyright should be shortened considerably or abolished. All of this began because a few posters suggested that all of public domain was a form of theft, and then our conversation began because you suggested that all derivative works are devoid of creativity or don't benefit society in any meaningful way.
At this point, and for this thread, a discussion about copyright length would just be tedious. And anyway, there's virtually no chance of copyright (particularly in the U.S.) being lowered; copyright length in the U.S. has tended to move in only one direction, and that's up.