I have a vested interest in wanting copyright to exist for some period of time. But I also have a vested interest in wanting limits. Not because I want to write fan-fiction, that's never been my thing for reading or writing, but because perpetual copyright could rapidly make writing very complicated - especially given the broadening interpretation that has happened.
Forever is a long time. What you call incentive may well get to a point where it backfires because the writer can't tell whether someone else in the last 1000 years has written a story about a boy wizard called Harry Potter. It's almost impossible to tell that now, but you're talking about setting a million monkeys (my apologies to my fellow authors) to a million word-processors for a million years. At least some of those monkeys are going to start getting very nervous about duplicating elements of other monkeys' stories.
Now if you want to say: copyright can be perpetual if the owner continues to pay some (greater than nominal) fees, then you might get my interest.
Last edited by gmw; 11-12-2019 at 01:13 AM.
Reason: Some clarification.
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