Quote:
Originally Posted by doubleshuffle
Trying to clarify - not least for myself - why I find the idea of eternal copyright so utterly offensive:
I think it would destroy the last bits of the idea of people forming a community, in which ideas are exchanged - for mutual benefit, joy, entertainment, etc. Exchange of ideas means that the reader (I'll stick with this, though it also applies to other media) is potentially also a writer, or, in oral communication, the listener is also a speaker.
So someone who has to say something offers it to others, and is glad if people react to it, taking it up, quoting it, alluding to it, expand on it, and so on. Living in a money-based society, the writer has to make a living, hence copyright, which limits the free exchange of ideas, but is an unavoidable compromise the way the world is right now. Copyright for the writer's lifetime and perhaps even some years on top doesn't completely destroy the idea of exchange.
Eternal copyright, on the other hand, would crush the idea of exchange right under the Mouse's giant steel boot. It is not about writers and their ideas anymore, but about franchises. It only makes sense for corporations that cannot see content as something to communicate about, but as something to consume. The listener who might talk back, the reader who might write back, are reduced to consumers who buy the T-shirt. The only thing they are supposed to write is an Insta post with a selfie in the T-shirt.
Introducing it would turn all creativity into the franchise model, burying the last shreds of the idea that there might be parts of human communication that are not commodities.
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I think you have a solid point about eternal copyright only making sense to corporations. For the most part, the only two arguments that I've seen for copyright as property comes from two different entities. The first is corporations who hold franchises with significant value and don't want their gravy train interrupted.
The other is from a small group of writers who simply feel that they wrote it therefore it's theirs to control. It's the same feeling that any craftsman might have, but it's the same basic argument that a small child who wants a cookie might make, i.e. because I want it. They are unable to say why they should be treated differently than the guy who hand carves a beautiful chair.
That's not to say that there aren't solid arguments for copyrights that extend longer than I would like. That's why I'm open to many ideas to make sure that authors get paid while society as a whole also gets the benefit of books being available for purchase and reasonable use of those works.