Quote:
Originally Posted by hardcastle
Fun fact: If copyright was as short as it was originally designed, we would be getting anything written in 1986!
Mildly hard to defend such a short term, but the idea is still slightly amusing to ponder.
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I've heard it said that the vast majority of books earn all they are going to make in the first four months and only a handful of authors make anything on books after a year or two. From that point of view, a short term copyright isn't really that hard to defend. What makes it hard to defend is 1) authors tend to view their work as their personal property and 2) the handful of authors who continue to make money on backlist books.
The other issue is that Copyright covers books, music and movies all of which have very different economics. A copyright of 21 years for most books would probably work out (just need some way to handle the Rowlings and Tolkiens of the world), yet movies and music can continue to generate money for the copyright holders for a long time period.