[RHWright]

I've said it before in previous discussions, but I'll chime in again.

1) For copyright length: for me, life + 20 years seems adequate. That covers the creator and accounts for providing for any minor children, without giving an estate a stranglehold for decades. Newly published posthumous works should get a flat 20 years, but I'm sure that's a side issue for any but the most prolific and popular authors.

2) Eliminate corporate ownership of all copyrights, except in very narrowly defined work-for-hire situations. So, say, if I create a brochure for a company that can only ever be relevant to their needs, that's fine to assign full copyright as work for hire. However, if I create something that is not business-specific or dependent on the context of that business to function (Superman, Mickey Mouse, Teletubbies), the work-for-hire agreement should only have a limited duration license. Say, 10 years. If, after 10 years, the business wants to continue the license, they must renegotiate a new license for another 10 years. This can go on for the life of the (human) creator + 20 years. After that, neither the corporation or estate can claim copyright.

3) Obviously this gets slightly more complicated with joint creators (Superman) and if you throw in multiple collaborators in a work-for-hire/staff situation. But I think it would be time better spent adjudicating that than with Disney's lawyers going after preschools for painting their own Mickey Mouse on their classroom walls.

Are these ideas and numbers arbitrary? Sure. But other than the concept that personal property is what I'm strong enough to take and keep others from taking from me (which, I hope, humanity has mostly progressed beyond) "personal property" --intellectual or otherwise-- is fairly arbitrary as a concept itself.

I don't think copyright is intended to support "capitalism" or protect a creator's "property" rights. Copyright is an incentive to contribute to the creativity and innovation of society. The incentive is a limited period of control and exclusivity. The limited period should not be made unlimited and the incentive (in terms of copyright length) should not outweigh the benefit to the community that it is intended to promote.

Just my 2 cents.