Quote:
Originally Posted by doubleshuffle
Since the idea behind copyright is giving an incentive to creativity, the whole idea that it should persist for a long period after the author's death is just wrong.
There is a great interview with German author Arno Schmidt from the late sixties or early seventies. He's as strong a proponent of copyright as you can find in this interview, because his latest work has been pirated and he is livid about it. He's so furious that as a listener (I've heard the audio of the interview) you are worried he might have a heart attack. He leaves no doubt about the fact that he thinks book pirates are scum, and he has tons of great arguments to support the point.
Then, near the end, he is asked about the then current plan to extend copyright from Life +20 to Life +50, and he replies that he finds it preposterous. Life +20 is plenty, he says, enough for the author's heirs get a fair share, and then the work should fall to the public domain.
I agree with Schmidt. Why should generations of heirs make money from a book their ancestor wrote?
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Sorry, Doubleshuff, but I disagree. An author, unlike other people who work, takes his or her recompense, for their work, over a much, much longer period of time. If you work, most likely, you are compensated either weekly or biweekly or monthly.
An author may work the same period of time as you--let's say, for a typical, full-length, decently-written novel, a year. In that year, you get paid your due for that labor's period. The author may not make that money for a much longer period.
You can leave whatever you earn, in your LIFETIME, to your children, your pets, your local charity, or whatever you want.
If you leave your children money--say, in a trust--they can live on that money, or, they can live on interest or investment income from that money.
Why should the author's children be denied the same right? If the author's estate's VALUE is made up of money AND copyrighted material, why should they be deprived of the value of the copyright material?
Why should your children be allowed to inherit your money or your property? Why are YOUR children more entitled than a writer's?
Every time this discussion comes up, authors and other content creators are always--always--magically relegated to some lesser class than EVERYBODY else. Everyone seems to feel that they're entitled to take that person's creative endeavors from them, or from their heirs, etc.
I don't get it.
@AnotherCat:
I can tell that you're not from the US. Your idea is that the government "grants" copyright to writers, as if they are the ultimate arbiters of what's right. In the US, we feel that law exists to codify rights with which we are already imbued, like the codification of the rights to free speech, worship, etc., in our Bill of Rights, etc.
I'd argue that copyright law exists to
protect the pre-existing rights of creators
to their OWN BLOODY creations. It's not some magnanimous "grant" of rights from The Government.
Copyright law exists for the simple reason that without it, people wouldn't bother to create valuable (by which I mean, provides value to the reader, of whatever kind, fiction, non-fiction, etc.) written products like books. Why would they, if those could be taken by anyone who wants it? Without recompense? We ALL, ALL, want payment for our labors. There's hardly anything indecent or abnormal or GREEDY in that.
ALL of us can create wealth of some type that can generate income after death--period. Why should authors be some lesser class of individuals?
Hitch