Quote:
Originally Posted by ApK
I think the point is that measuring from birth is inappropriate and irrelevant. Why should protection of a work start to run out BEFORE the work exists?
People who create things late in life would need a time machine to enjoy the same protection as those who started early.
"Sorry Grandma Moses, you started painting too late, no equal protection under the law for you!"
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We might also make the same argument as regards the unfortunate authors that die early - they end up with less copyright protection than those that enjoy a long life.
Anyway, date of birth runs into the same problem as existing copyright being based on when a person died: it requires extra information. Whereas date of publication is generally known, and if publishers would take even the most meagre amounts of care (and most do these days at least), then date of first publication is also generally known. The state of the author (whether alive, dead, undead or immortal), does not matter if we simply base copyright on when a work was first published.
And when it comes to copyright and its automatic invocation, simple trumps almost everything else.