Anti-piracy laws should be stringent and enforcable

[cthulu2016]

Anti-piracy laws should be stringent and enforcable...

...and copyright should be twenty years from first publication (not authorship). Period. No exceptions.

I think that policy combination would maximize the vibrancy and quality of culture.

Incentivize creation. De-incentivize ownership.

[Moostache]

1. Well...maybe thats a start.

I think that 10 years is plenty, but I would be willing to meet you in the middle at 15 years...

However, digital distribution has changed the business model beyond repair.

Music, Movies, Games, and Books are no longer consumed the same as they were 30 years ago when the advent of videotape sparked the first cries of piracy and unfairness to the creative forces that generate content.

Until this is fully recognized and addressed, much the way radio was harnessed to compensate artists, then there is no hope of reigning in "piracy".

[FarLeftFist]

2. I'm going to need at least 200 Kindle's to fill this antique bookshelf.

[starroute]

3. There are problems with that

I can think of any number of reasons why -- but several jump out at me:

1) Authors don't have a lot of job security -- and to the extent that they're successful, they tend to count on living on their royalties in their old age.

2) A certain number of authors spend years or even decades toiling in obscurity before enjoying any success. (Philip K. Dick, for example) At that point, their early works are suddenly in demand for the first time -- and they ought to benefit from that.

3) Derivative works are a whole other issue. Would it be fair for a moderately successful novel to be turned into a wildly popular movie 20 years later with not a penny to the original author?

The problem is that unlike patented inventions, which tend to have their maximum value when they're new, copyrighted creative works follow their own timetable. Their value may increase gradually over many years, or may explode suddenly due to later events.

There are also problems with the idea of "stringent and enforcable [sic]" copyright laws, since studies have shown that slightly "leaky" laws tend to work better for both creators and audience.

My own inclination would be for a terms of something like author's lifetime or 40 years, whichever is later -- plus possibly allowing immediate heirs to continue to control the licensing of derivative works.

[cthulu2016]

4. I concede that this radical change would change things

Any reduction in copyright term will harm some creators or heirs of creators. And expanding it to infinity would benefit creators and heirs of creators.

So we are talking about a practical issue with sliding costs and benefits.

Dick is a good example of a genius toiling in relative obscurity, but even in his case Bladerunner was made less than 20 years after the publication of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and the bulk of his book sales have probably followed his death (1982?).

On the other hand, maybe Phillip K. Dick wanted to write a sequel to Gone With the Wind, but could not. (Boy would that be a weird book!)

As a creative person I see both sides... it's nice to own your work, but it's also nice to live in an open culture.

I might favor slightly different terms for adaptation in other media. And trademarking characters adds a whole 'nother wrinkle that would have to be addressed.

But it is not automatic to me that it is bad for artists to lose rights during their lifetimes. It's just different.

Maybe Dick would have caught on only when people started posting his obscure, (and out of print) twenty year old books beginning about 1971. And thus would have sold more of his late 1970s books.

There will always be a story with winners and losers.

[joeglow3]

5. I call bull shit

I write a book, write a song, create a painting, etc. After 20 years, what entitles you to profit from it?

[cthulu2016]

6. Is Ayn Rand in the public domain?

If not, you might owe her estate some money for that post.

Why do you think anyone would profit from it? It would be price competed to near zero. It would be part of the cultre, rather than property.

I it is property then you should support copyright in perpetuity through hiers... that would be the case with real property.

Should artists pay property tax on their works whether they are in print or not?

[Nuclear Unicorn]

7. I don't think my-novel-my-property necessarily infers property taxes

You pay property taxes on your house but not your XBox even though both are your property (or more ironically, you're mortgagting your house while your XBox was bought outright). IIRC current copyright law is 75 years. That's a very arbitrary number but it was decided upon by people gauging how they feel WRT creator ownership being too short, being too long or just about right as far as the creator's lifetime is concerned.

I think the standard of the creator's natural lifetime, plus a decade or two hedge for their immediate family isn't so bad. Certainly a "culture," if it is worth preserving, would endure longer than one person's lifetime and if the art is so important to the culture the culture can cough-up a few bucks at fair market value.

[joeglow3]

8. In your example, there are plenty of ways people would profit

Put it on their website (this generates traffic, increases advertising revenue, etc.).

Some studio decides to use it for a move (saving themselves 6-7 figures in costs for coming up with a script).

There are PLENTY of ways people could use other people's ideas/work to profit. So, I ask again, what gives them a right to profit from this work they did NOTHING to create without paying a single dime in exchange?