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doubleshuffle · 10-09-2019, 05:25 PM

I once heard a very interesting interview with German writer Arno Schmidt from the late 1960s or early 1970s. The topic is a pirate edition of his latest book, about which he is not amused at all. He is livid, in fact. The pirates had acted from an honourable motive; they wanted to make his book, which had only come out in a prohibitively expensive edition, available to the general public. They had even visited Schmidt and tried to give him royalties for their pirate edition. He is furious anyway. In short, he is as staunch a fighter for copyright as you can imagine.

But then there's a quick exchange about copyright after the author's death. In Germany, it had just been extended from 20 to 50 years - and Schmidt calls that extension ridiculous. Twenty years, he thinks, is absolutely sufficient to let an author's children profit a bit from his efforts, and it shouldn't be any longer.

So if Life+20 is enough for an author who is fiercely protective of his own copyright, why should it be so much longer?

10-09-2019, 05:25 PM	#14
doubleshuffle Unicycle Daredevil Posts: 13,944 Karma: 185432100 Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Planet of the Pudding Brains Device: Aura HD (R.I.P. After six years the USB socket died.) tolino shine 3	I once heard a very interesting interview with German writer Arno Schmidt from the late 1960s or early 1970s. The topic is a pirate edition of his latest book, about which he is not amused at all. He is livid, in fact. The pirates had acted from an honourable motive; they wanted to make his book, which had only come out in a prohibitively expensive edition, available to the general public. They had even visited Schmidt and tried to give him royalties for their pirate edition. He is furious anyway. In short, he is as staunch a fighter for copyright as you can imagine. But then there's a quick exchange about copyright after the author's death. In Germany, it had just been extended from 20 to 50 years - and Schmidt calls that extension ridiculous. Twenty years, he thinks, is absolutely sufficient to let an author's children profit a bit from his efforts, and it shouldn't be any longer. So if Life+20 is enough for an author who is fiercely protective of his own copyright, why should it be so much longer?