Quote:
Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj
Making copyright period shorter would certainly change conditions, make some authors currently making a living out of it stop writing, but at the same time possibly make some authors who no longer needed to write start writing again. Which authors the society wants more?
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Making copyright shorter also increases the number of other authors who will create derivative works based on the original before it's become so outdated nobody's interested in them. It potentially increases the number who would be willing to translate or re-release the original in a new form (paperback for something that had only been hardcover, or DVD for a movie only on film) and therefore increase the public collection of artistic works.
The original author might not have interest in releasing an illustrated version, or might not have the skill to translate it, or might not think a big enough market exists to bother with the conversion to DVD.
Shorter copyright lengths aren't so much designed to nudge authors & other creators into making more as they're designed to encourage the use of those works to enrich the public culture. The public domain is how we prevent greed or apathy from stopping cultural growth.