Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
Only extremely popular books will have copyrights having even a small value, to the author's children, as an inheritance. I think the children of that tiny group of mega-popular authors are already getting enough inheritance (if their parents left then any) without having a continuing income from the rights. This isn't to argue for taking away all inheritance, just to say that it shouldn't be a reason for long copyright.
I've wondered where they, back in 1886, came up with the idea of Life + 50. I've never been able to find out the original justification, although there must have been one. Here's my hypothesis. Back then, successful authors often had much younger wives. And there was no government social insurance to support widows after their husband died. So, in my hypothesis, Life + 50 was to support the widow. Also, even if the husband and wife were the same age, back then it was common for one partner to live far longer than the other. Charlotte Bronte's husband, Arthur Bell Nicholls, was less than 3 years younger than her, but outlived Charlotte by 51 years. Copyright could, theoretically, have prevented Nicholls from becoming a public charge.
I could be wrong -- I'm probably wrong -- and would be glad it someone could point me to any original Berne Convention debate on why 50 years is the charm.
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This is not the most readable history of the Berne Convention formation, but this contains all the minutes of the various Berne Convention formation meetings.
ftp://ftp.wipo.int/pub/library/ebook...o_pub_877e.pdf
See in particular pages 90 and 104.
From page 104:
"On the subject of the first wish, Mr. Lavollee said that the French Delegation would have preferred the term of protection after the death of the author to be extended to 50 years.
Mr. Lagerheim endorsed that statement."
It's 243 pages long (but with pretty pictures in it), I have only given it a short browse.