These rules are being abused to stifle innovation and competition, simple as that. I don't have any problem in principle of some exponential scale, but it just seems like a solution for a non-problem.
The problem is that the Constitution specifies "exclusive rights for a limited time", which the supreme court appears to have interpreted as _any finite timespan_ [1].
Of course, that only establishes an upper bound. congress is free to introduce legislation to weaken current protections.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldred_v._Ashcroft#Supreme_Cou...
Let's take a few steps in the right direction and see what happens?
Note that the parent comment says "why should we allow entities to monopolize IP _long after the creators are dead". Reducing copyright length to a more sane level would prevent exactly this: How on earth is arresting and mildly reversing the ceaseless march of extended copyright terms "swinging to the opposite extreme?"
It is extreme in the sense that current copyright extremely favours major companies. Going the opposite way extremely disfavours major companies with IP that spans centuries.
You have to find a compromise so that both companies and everyone else is happy with.
The compromise is simple. Allow copyright extensions indefinitively on an individual basis in exchange for a fee. If mickeymouse is profitable to disney then let them have it. They will get it at any cost anyway and destroy a lot of things in the process. Sacrificing perpetually profitable IP is a small cost in exchange for all the works that are no longer profitable which is probably more than 99% of all works.
There's no chance Disney will be happy with any solution which involves losing any level of control over any copyright they currently own (or will own in the future).
Although they would, I'm sure, be happy for other people to have to pay to maintain their copyright, making it easier to plagiarise poorer creators.
It also presents another problem: one of the objectives of copyright is to reward innovation. If you created something new, it makes sense to let you profit from it for a time. But if you can profit from it forever, you have no reason to innovate more.
Not innovating more goes against one of the objectives of copyright. It's also bad for the economy, for the people, for everyone. We need innovation.
Perpetuating private control over what was already promised to be in the public domain is the extreme.
Anything taken out of former copyright limits probably already is in the public domain even in spite of the legislation without compensation to those who have standing, which just happens to be the American people. Legal has never pursued that avenue. Pity.
As for your username, wow.
the copyright needs to be an entity by itself and not tied to the author.
it needs shortening but any proposal with 'original creator' center and foremost is basically ignoring the reality of modern content production
There's a handful of ways to do it if you are not going to center copyright terms around the life of the original creator, some of which I think are better than others but I'll try to leave most of my opinion out of this.
1. You can center it around first publication. In this scenario you actually do not automatically retain copyrights unless you actually publish, and then you would likely need to define in detail what publication is.
Is sharing in an email message or WhatsApp "publication"? I would argue not, but the law would need to reflect this. Again without spinning this discussion off into a tangent, there's probably multiple ways you could write that into the law, but some language like "made available to the public for free or for a fee" etc. or whatever the American legalese equivalent of that sentence would be. IANAL
2. You could center it around the registration date with the Library of Congress. Again, in this scenario you do not actually automatically retain copyright, and while it massively simplifies the letter of the law, it shifts more of the burden to the Library of Congress to retain records. In this scenario, you would file a registration with a full copy of the work or specifications or some other means of defining it in the case of things like statues. Probably the main advantage of this is that the Library of Congress then has a full copy of the text, source code, blueprints, etc. that it can then automatically publish itself upon the copyright's expiration.
Anything you do though, I would do it for a fixed term, say, just to pick a random number out of the air, 50 years and no more. No renewals, just one copyright term and that is it. You can choose to relinquish it to the public domain before that time has come to pass but you could not extend it.
A compromise would be to meet someone in the middle, say like on the original term of Copyright, 14 years plus a single 14 Year extension to the Original Creator if they are alive
BTW, I am absolutely not advocating that current definition of intellectual properties is correct or even fair. I am just saying that assuming if this definition was ideal, wouldn't above make sense?
It really is not.
What makes you believe that it is?
> When you die, you have right to transfer these properties to your designated heir.
A great many people who don't get to inherit their wealth have been questioning this mantra for centuries, probably longer (albeit more cautiously).