Quote:
Originally Posted by Treadstone71
For those who favor a copyright term based on the lifetime of the artist, why do artistic works deserve so much more protection than technical works? Patents (in the USA) are only for 20 years. Books copyrighted before I was born (1969) could still be protected after I'm gone, even assuming I live another 40 years.
Both patent and copyright protection are granted to foster creation and innovation. However, I think a much shorter limit for copyright could do more to achieve those purposes than the current one. For instance, the Harry Potter series. Assuming it stays moderately popular for the next couple decades (not guaranteed, obviously), what incentive does JKR have for creating anything new?
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Generally speaking, because of the pace of technology, patents are relevant for a shorter period of time. True, if they extended patents they would be more valuable... but 20 years is an awful lot of time to come up with alternative ways of doing the same thing. Creative works, on the other hand, have individual unique value.
I agree that if you're a Rowling or a Grisham or a Brown, you've made so much money your incentive to keep creating for monetary reasons is reduced. But shortening copyright won't make them write more; they've already made it big. Look at a lot of the big name genre writers like Anthony, Bujold, Butcher, Card, Cherryh, Flint, Pratchett, Resnick, Turtledove, Vinge, Weber... they write books every year (sometimes more than one) because they need to in order to make a living. They're already writing as fast as they can; shortening copyright would only make things harder for them.