Quote:
Originally Posted by lumpynose
I was wondering, is it possible to downgrade an existing copyright to Creative Commons Non-commercial?
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The advantage to the copyright holders (e.g., descendants of the authors) being that I suspect that the reason they're maintaining and renewing the copyrights is not for any money they get from book sales but from potential money from rights for making movies, tv shows, etc. from the books and short stories.
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By far the biggest reason that nothing is being done with the many, many out-of-print but still-in-copright books is because the author's heirs aren't interested, or may be unaware of the books, or may not exist (i.e. the author doesn't have any heirs).
But anyone who does own the copyright of something is free at any time to issue it under a creative commons licence.