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Comment by javert | Hacker News Reader

Longer copyright times would incentivize more investment in artists.

For example, you would see "YC for budding young novelists" if copyright were more long-term and secure.

You can pay the living expenses of a whole lot of would-be-starving-artists-but-actually-baristas, for an enormous number of years, if you can collect investment revenue from the one who turned out to be Stephen King.

This idea is an extension of what copyright is for, which it to allow creators to make money, thus incentivizing them.

I support unlimited-duration copyright.

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> You can pay the living expenses of a whole lot of would-be-starving-artists-but-actually-baristas, for an enormous number of years, if you can collect investment revenue from the one who turned out to be Stephen King.

even with unlimited-length copyright, who would do that? if I'm the investor, I would just find a bunch of aspiring artists and offer to pay their living expenses for a year in exchange for ownership of the copyright. I'd ditch the ones that didn't make money and offer better terms to the successful ones for their next work. with unlimited-length copyright, I might be willing to give more people a one-year shot, but the end result would still be that most of them go back to their barista job.

This is pretty much how the music industry operates already.

> I support unlimited-duration copyright.

Wow. That's an unpopular position around here!

Even among those of us who support copyright and cringe at the advocacy for piracy you often see in these threads, I think there is a lot more support for shortening copyright duration.

Zero copyright facilitates exploitation by certain corporations (telecoms, media giants), while unlimited copyright facilitates exploitation by a different set of corporations (IP-hoarding publishers). Limited duration copyright is the best option.

But there is a counterpoint to that. More copyright helps creators and incentivizes creation.

> unlimited copyright facilitates exploitation by a different set of corporations

"Exploitation" is a loaded word. Nobody is going to pay $500 to read Harry Potter. What you would see with unlimited copyright is what you already see: there is a reasonable maximum that can be charged for (say) books in a given market. In other markets (e.g. 3rd world), prices are lower.

Scientific publishing is an entirely different issue, BTW. Science journal publishers rape universities and the general public. That is not really because of copyright. It's a different system of abuse that I don't want to raise here.

Would Harry Potter still have been written if copyright was only 20 years? Is there any book written where the author is thinking "Hmm, copyright. It's not worth it for me to write this where I only get paid for 20 years. But 70 years' royalties? Yeah, that's enough to make it worth the effort."

Does anyone think that way? They shouldn't, because for almost all books, the income past 20 years is zero.

Now, corporations are a bit different, and if you're Disney making a movie, the revenue past 20 years is actually something you consider. Still... would the Avengers movies, say, not get made without 95 year copyright? I doubt it. They made enough money in the first year that they would still have been made even if copyright was quite short.

So I can't buy this argument that "almost-forever" copyright incentivizes creation. I mean, it does, to some degree. But with the current duration, we are ridiculously far past the law of diminishing returns.

> More copyright helps creators and incentivizes creation.

This is false. It helps corporations and hardly anyone else. There was incentive to create music and other works before copyright and there would still be without it.

This side-steps the idea presented in my original comment (4th parent of this comment).

Of the creators you know, how many of them would rank the limited duration of copyright terms among their chief worries that lead them to re-think a career as a creator?

maybe rape isn't the best word here. I invite you to edit because the rest of the post has a point.

It's too late to edit, as far as I can tell. Why do you have a problem with that word? Genuinely asking. If it's because you don't want to "trigger" people, shouldn't you have also not used it?

I was not "triggered", but it stood out to me and bothered me, as well — I thought that the it was ill-used, and undermined you rhetorically. It's too horrific and overbearing a word to be used for most metaphors, overpowering whatever it gets attached to.

I don't think the financial challenge of being a writer these days is correlated to copyright laws being too weak.

if copyright were more long-term

I really don't get this. Other people have already replied to you but not specifically on "long-term" vs your later "unlimited-duration" stand.

The USA adopted the Berne Convention in 1989. It stipulates that the duration of the term for copyright protection is the life of the author plus at least 50 years after their death. For some categories of works, the minimum duration is shorter. For example, the minimum term for applied art is 25 years. Movies have a minimum term of 50 years. Countries may choose a longer term of protection, and most countries have done so.

If you're a potential "budding young novelist", will you eschew that career because life + 50 years isn't unlimited and isn't long enough for you?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries%27_copyright...

Some literary agencies operate like this. They make most of their revenue from a small number of authors. In some ways, literary agencies already are "YC for budding young novelists."

I appreciate your pointing this out.

My proposal would undoubtedly allow literary agencies to take more chances, funding more new authors for longer periods of time.

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