[petrucci]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

The overwhelming majority of books cease to have value fairly quickly.

If they truly had no value then people would not be interested in them. However, people are interested in copying/saving them. Thus they have value.

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

Eternal copyright has the same effect as book burning: it makes books disappear.

I readily admit that copyright can negatively effect the availability of some works. It is my opinion that things which are out of print should not be copyright. In this day and age, it is trivial to publish things, so it would not be much of a burden on the copyright holder.

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

Capitalism existed for a very long time without such extensive periods of copyright, thus you cannot appeal to capitalism to justify eternal copyright: eternal copyright just isn't an inherent component of capitalism.

I am not exactly sure at this point how central it is to capitalism. I suspect that it is very central. I will add that it has never been easier to copy works than it is today. My understanding is that copyright/printing rights came into being in the sixteenth century, not long after the printing press changed the economy. With today's technologies that are capable of copying both electronic and some physical items very inexpensively, copyright is a very important part of capitalism.

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

If eternal copyright is such a great idea, then eternal patent should be a great idea too, except that eternal patent would lead to stagnation.

There are arguments on both sides of this issue. If there were no patents then there would be no incentive to put work into creating something, when someone else can take it for nothing. This would also lead to stagnation. I think that it is very important that things which have value, also have a cost associated with them. Without such a cost, there would be little incentive to try to make something different. You would have to constantly make something that was not only better than the previous thing, but also something that was better by a large margin, as the old thing would be free.

Originally Posted by Ninja Lawyer

I think it's also important to understand that artists are also the beneficiary of shorter copyright periods. Art tends to be a little bit of creativity and a lot of remixing of expressions you're exposed to, particularly expressions in the same area of art. It's helpful to artists to have more rather than less expressions to reuse and transform, just like it's useful for a carpenter to have more than just a hammer.

It is also important for artists to be able to benefit financially from their efforts. Without copyrights of sufficient length, it simply does not pay to create works of art. This is especially true if those works are not immediately recognized, as has been the case with so many great artists.

Originally Posted by Ninja Lawyer

My comment is accurate as written, in that I don't think an author or other artist should have such a long monopoly on a particular expression. I want people to be able to create new stories in the Harry Potter universe if they want (or the Star Wars universe, Star Trek universe, etc.) after a reasonable period of time. How many interesting stories remix and retell (with a twist) a play from Shakespeare?

Nothing is stopping people from making such stories for personal edification, as it would probably fall under fair use. However, there is an issue if you wish to profit from the stories. In that instance you would need to obtain permission from the copyright holder. Unfortunately, it cannot work both ways. If the author wants to profit from their work, then copyright of sufficient length is needed. (the length is dependent on the demand and value) Granted that there is copyright, then we cannot just take large parts of other peoples' creations, even if we want to make something new from them.