Yeah. My personal, weird, arbitrary opinion on copyright length is, You should be able to raise kids and retire on your output, but your grandkids shouldn't expect to be set up for life on it. Natural Life plus a decade or two for individuals always felt like plenty. - ThreadSky

ironspike.bsky.social • 173 days ago

Yeah. My personal, weird, arbitrary opinion on copyright length is, You should be able to raise kids and retire on your output, but your grandkids shouldn't expect to be set up for life on it. Natural Life plus a decade or two for individuals always felt like plenty.

Reposted from Daniel J. Willis

My hot take was always lifetime plus 10 years for individuals, 20 years or until it's no longer commercially available for corporations. And corporations are allowed to leave the copyright with the individual and rent it back from them if the creator agrees to it.

Comments

bunshonokai.bsky.social•172 days ago

I know it's controversial but I do think there needs to be a more explicit carve out for Non-commercial non-financial uses, Like obviously businesses can't use stuff for free, But if you plug your ipod into the speaker system at a party You shouldn't have to worry about copyright on the video

abbylark.bsky.social•173 days ago

I'm just straight up getting really exhausted of the government running so far from being big brother that they are just starting to let corporations take over the job.

bijhan.bsky.social•171 days ago

I totally agree. But I do have a question. How would this apply to gestalt media? Power Rangers is an adaptation of a Japanese series that is a sequel. Whose lifespan do we measure? The creator of the first show? The creator of the Japanese sequel? The creator of Power Rangers?

ironspike.bsky.social•173 days ago

Not to be morbid, but let's say you pen a global bestseller, Just something Twilight-tier, then suddenly drop dead. I think it's fair your kids should be taken care of; 20 years of royalties should do the trick.

That's why I like Natural Life + 20.

pathofshrines.bsky.social•173 days ago

Yeah. Or set a minimum term: lifetime or thirty years, whichever comes later

darkpoole.bsky.social•173 days ago

I like life plus 25, with a 50 year minimum.

And a flat 50 years for corporate-owned "work for hire" stuff. In year 51, it all goes into the public domain.

chanticleer.com•173 days ago

Natural life + 20, assigned copyrights revert to creator after 17 years, work-for-hire copyrights expire in 17 years.

gotitwrite.bsky.social•173 days ago

Great, another reason for corporations to want creatives to die ASAP.

xaiax.net•173 days ago

Also if it was just life then companies would have a perverse incentive.

iscored.info•173 days ago

Yeah I dunno, I think the “immediately drop dead” hypothetical here would be better served by a stipulation that says “lifetime or average life expectancy, whichever is more”. Even with the two decade stipulation, it’s wildly unfair to early diers versus people who make it to 99.

iscored.info•173 days ago

(And I think we are strangling the public domain to death, it has huge value. Just ask Disney - it’s where they get all their ideas)

sdowney.bsky.social•172 days ago

I tend to think the tracking issues for that are complicated enough that fixed term is a more fair tradeoff between the author/inventor and the public.

When did the author of this book published in 1953 pass is not a simple question. Is it 14/35/70 years since creation is easier.

sdowney.bsky.social•172 days ago

And not having to touch the corporate personhood problem is a win on its own.

goosname.bsky.social•173 days ago

i’ve always thought that should be explicitly codified. like, your children can’t inherit copyrights, unless they are under 25, in which case the rights go into a trust for their benefit until they turn 25.

goosname.bsky.social•173 days ago

but i also think we should tax billionaires out of existence and give everyone a basic income, so ya know, just pipe dreams

teaberryblue.net•173 days ago

Yeah, Anna Dewdney, the woman who wrote Llama Llama Red Pajama died at 50 years old of brain cancer only a little over 10 years after she wrote the first book. I don’t know how old her kids were but she had two of them.

teaberryblue.net•173 days ago

More cynically, if copyrighted works went into PD at the death of the author, people would get straight up murdered.

matgb.uk•173 days ago

I had never thought of it that way :-(

I like a sort of fading copyright, you get full control for X years, it's yours, after that it's public domain but you get royalties if you're about-like the way patents can work. Fixed terms were always a preference

belleofball.bsky.social•173 days ago

It used to be life + 50 here in the US, the minimum under the Berne Convention. We only raised it because other countries raised theirs, but didn't apply it to works of US origin. So, copyright would run out in the US, and would then expire even in countries with longer terms.

belleofball.bsky.social•173 days ago

The real problem is work for hire, because it's a straight 100 years. I say, keep it at 100 years, but only if you pay the artist residuals. Otherwise, 25.

efcomix.bsky.social•172 days ago

You're being too generous with that +20. Once someone drops dead, into the public domain your IP should go.

Entertainment IPs should be strictly limited to those with a beating heart, grumbling stomach and a pair of lungs which disqualifies corporations.

And inheritances? Capped at $100k.

nat.gertler.com•172 days ago

I personally like the 70 years after death, on the thought that the folks who will be caretaking the property can be folks who actually knew me. (But then I see more value to the caretaking than most in these discussions.)

But as a PD-exploiting publisher: require renewals, please!

42.computer•171 days ago

Yeah, I was always there or thereabouts. Life plus “making sure my family isn’t fucked” with utterly different rules for corporations.

teaberryblue.net•173 days ago

I feel like your kids should be able to reap some benefits because a lot of people’s families sacrifice a lot for their family member to succeed in a creative field but yeah, adult grandchildren should not be able to set up whole corporations based on their grandparents’ IP.

ryanwenslow.bsky.social•173 days ago

I so want to append an unnecessary“… and be especially shitty with it” based on all the examples that come immediately to mind

teaberryblue.net•173 days ago

Yeah, I was trying not to be too much of an asshole

ironwren.bsky.social•173 days ago

How does that with copyrights that are owned by a company? Work-for-hire stuff that was conceived specifically as a corporate property?

bleedingtree.bsky.social•173 days ago

My take is that corporations should have a more limited time than they have. Patents are 20 years and seem to work, but 30 or so works. Something that doesn't discourage the R&D of creating things but doesn't extend into lifetimes.

ironwren.bsky.social•172 days ago

Makes sense, though you would need some way of preventing companies from engaging in workarounds like "ok, the copyright will remain in your name but you grant us exclusive rights to it" as part of the work-for-hire contract.

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