Quote:
Originally Posted by leebase
Society is rewarded by having fiction. This is not like medical patents where after 20 years, everyone can make aspirin. Something I favor. There are not an infinite number of ways to do what aspirin does. Society never needs to own someone else's fiction work
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You might equally well say that society should not spend time and money preventing people from copying someone else's fiction, because fiction has no practical value.
I am fully in favour of copyright in the lifetime of the author. I am even in favour of a time limited copyright after an author's death. My favoured copyright length would be 50 years from publication or the lifetime of the author, whichever is longer. I certainly don't favour abolishing copyright altogether.
But arguing for a perpetual copyright for fiction because it's of no practical value rather misses the point of a shared cultural heritage.
Fiction is part of our culture. Spending time and money protecting an excessively long copyright to enrich people who had nothing to do with the creation of the fiction is not sensible or fair.