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Originally Posted by Good Old Neon
Sure, for now, but that may change dramatically if and when eBook sales begin to eclipse hardcopies.
I agree with civil disobedience in times of war and the other examples given, but I feel it is a long, long stretch to compare file-sharing with civil rights. I’m sorry, but it strikes me as absurd and sort of insulting - as if a person's human rights are being trampled upon because they do not have free access to commercial goods.
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actually i consider locking down works which should have entered the public domain for our collective good years ago to be a pretty serious wrong inflicted on *all* of us.
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Originally Posted by Elfwreck
Minor tangent: allowing copyrights to extend beyond death is encouragement to publish in the last years of one's life, in order that one's heirs can benefit. Otherwise, there's no encouragement to publish one's final notes, inventions, art projects, whatever--the author won't get to read the reviews, and his family won't get substantial gain from the publication.
I prefer the idea of copyrights of a limited and specific length of time, rather than "life of author." (Currently, I'm leaning towards a preference of between 20 and 40 years. Plenty long enough to wring major commercial activity out of a work, and short enough to be able to freely share one's favorite childhood works with one's grandchildren and their friends, regardless of what the media corporations would like.)
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actually i agree with the idea of a copyright of a limited and specific length of time, and 20 to 40 years sounds about right to me. see also Eric Flint's article :
Copyright : how long should it be ?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Good Old Neon
As they’re not factories, some writers only have one or two good books in them. Allowing copyright protection for only 20 to 40 years strikes me as a bit on the short side.
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so, a writer should be able to write one book at the age of, say, 20 years old, and continue earning money from it (presumably, enough to live on) even if they never write anything again ? wow, if only that applied to graphic design !! i'd love to make one website and then coast on that till the end of my years as i kept getting paid over and over and over and over for that one site !
(and webdesign is in fact a creative work as well as technical, which requires a lot of study and practice to do well, including ongoing training to keep up with evolving techniques and simply to improve one's craft, so the analogy is not so farfetched...)