Quote:
Originally Posted by Format C:
I'd rather go with income percentage.
From around 10% for the first decade, to a 90% for the century.
But I still wonder where the money goes...
|
What income? Not all copyrighted works generate money. Certainly something just written doesn't have any "income," and calculating the money it's made after 10 years can be ridiculously complicated. Does the author have to pay for what income the publisher got from the book? And works donated to nonprofit organizations may have zero income, but the creator may wish to continue copyright to prevent competing groups from using their material.
The money collected can go to
- Fund a registry and archive of copyrighted works, so people know what is covered, and have access to it so it doesn't drop out of existence,
- Fund public education about how copyright works, because it's complicated,
- Fund public domain works distribution--Gutenberg could use some grants, and films that haven't had their copyrights renewed could be converted to digital and distributed online.
- If there's anything left over after those, fund public works: books, art, scientific research.
The money collected from copyright registration could go towards the purposes for which copyright was established:
to promote progress in the useful arts and sciences.