Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
A long time - yes. Forever - no.
I know that copyright might seem to be "eternal" from the point of view of the individual, but it honestly isn't  . |
...And once again you respond to an irrelevant detail in stead of the actual point.
From the point of corporations/the market/modern innovation cycles, 100+ years of guaranteed income is an
immensely (You've frightened me out of using the word eternal, congratulations?) long time. No other industry has this sort of right to a guaranteed income, and it's all because they play, on the one hand, into the fear of "decreased" (though nobody really knows how to define it)
creativity/innovation, and on the other into feeling
sympathy for authors and musicians who either want their kids to have the right to not have to do an honest day's work for the first 70 years after they've died, or haven't done an honest day's work themselves in the past 50 years during which the performance copyright did apply, or else they'd have another source of income to which copyright still applied.
And then there is the fact that the more successful corporations can stifle the competition with that guaranteed income, making sure no new entrants start offering comparable goods & services at a reduced price.