Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
The social benefit to extending copyright beyond an author's death is to encourage late-in-life publications that he knows will benefit his family. It's also to encourage his family to publish posthumously; otherwise, why should they bother? Why not just put their own names on the work and get the benefit of copyright? Books "by the son of Stephen King" (if he were hit by a bus tomorrow) wouldn't be quite as popular as books by Stephen King, but if the other choice is releasing it to the public domain, the family might take the loss in sales.
It also prevents weird murders; if copyright ended on death, I'm sure it'd have occurred to *several* companies & weird individuals that Rowling doesn't normally wear a kevlar vest. Harry Potter books, movies and merchandise are worth millions; that's more than enough motive for murder.
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That's why copyright should be for a fixed length (like it was originally) and have nothing to do with the life/death of the author. It would solve all those issues.