Quote:
Originally Posted by leebase
People can sue for anything in the US. Doesn't mean their lawsuit has merrit.
You come up with your foundational principals. That someone will try to work the system doesn't change your foundational principals.
The foundational principal of copyright SHOULD be: the author who creates a unique work, owns the work....and all uses of the work. Forever...as long as the work remains economically active. Orphaned works fall into the public domain.
Someone who creates original work that builds on elements of public domain - only the original aspects can be copyrighted.
For fiction which has no element of scarcity - there is no time limit on ownership.
Now...build out the laws from these principles.
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That, of course, is your personal opinion of how it should be, though so far you haven't been able to articulate a rational for it other than because you say so.
Over the course of this thread, there are been many people posting reasons why we shouldn't have eternal copyright, ranging from philosophical to practical.
There is a political philosophy that says that society does things a certain way for a reason. Unless you understand the reason things are done a certain way, it's unwise to change it since you don't know what you are going to break.
As I've said before, if we are talking pure copyright, i.e. the right to make copies of a specific work, I have no real philosophical issues with the author milking it as long as work remains available to the public. It's only when we start talking about derivative works that I start to object strongly. I see no rational for preventing other writers from including Hobbits or muggles in their works. As long as the other writer only doesn't plagiarize the book (note that in a number of cases, the suit isn't about copyright, but rather plagiarizing), then have at it.