Quote:
Originally Posted by leebase
Premise....copyright is a good thing. Without that premise, nothing else works.
Copyright never stops being a good thing in the same way that money never stops being a good thing. If people are still interested in 1000 over Disney's movies today....it will only be because Disney has kept them relevant. Society is not owed Disney's money. Society is benefited by Disney creating content.
It is Disney's ongoing efforts that are making it's copyrights valuable and relevant in the first place.
Few people would know anything about The Little Mermaid...if Disney hadn't made the movie. Then incorporated the characters in a theme park, and a line of toys and other merchandise. Disney deserves to be able to keep building up this value the way Rockefeller got to keep all of his oil profits.
The reason for a limit on patents and non-fictional copyrights is obvious so that society can benefit by the building on. Society has no pressing need to have Disney build on The Little Mermaid in the first pace, nor of somebody taking that value for themselves now. Anybody can create their own story.
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So what if nobody today ended up not knowing about The Little Mermaid today. By your logic, the movie should never have been made, and would not, under permanent copyright. The owner of the copyright would have the property, but it would be moribund. . .
If you really believe in perpetual copyright, then it should be treated like real property, and taxed yearly, whether or not it generates any income or not. Land is taxed, whether or not it produces income or not. . .