Quote:
Originally Posted by etienne66
The original author of this thread was only talking about converting his library to digital. If he is a US citizen, I'm fairly certain he could claim "fair use" in this circumstance. Though I think it would be a time consuming ordeal.
On a related topic, if copyrights didn't last so long this wouldn't be as much of an issue. Personally I think copyrights should be no more than 20 years for most works and 5 to 10 for computer programs. You want to talk about orphaned works.
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Actually, that's only part of his question. The other part was about downloading a digital version of a book he owns.
As for the length of copyrights, that's more complicated than you'd think although in general I agree with you. In the US, one of the 'classic' Xmas movies is "It's a Wonderful Life" produced by Frank Capra. It was filmed in 1946 & was a financial flop. It didn't become popular until the copyright expired & independent TV stations started showing it because they could do so cheaply. After it became a 'classic' somebody bought the expired copyright & was able to get it renewed (don't know how-it was my impression that once they were expired, they're expired, but IANAL). After they started charging for it again (late 90's IIRC) TV stations stopped showing it so often.
The point I'm trying to make is that sometimes books aren't popular when first published. To be fair to the author therefore, the copyright should be long enough to give them more than one try. Is 75 years too long? IMO, yes. But I don't think 20 years is too long. (And I'm definitely against the idea that copyrights should be renewable.)