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Comment by grishka | Hacker News Reader

No, it's anything but fair. Those heirs did nothing at all. Why should they benefit from these works? On the opposite, copyright should not be transferable.

It should last maybe several years, and that's it. Only then most people would have any semblance of respect for it. And then something entering the public domain would be actually an event people would be looking forward to. Right now everyone considers copyright to be an effectively eternal thing.

It's also really depressing that the entirety of our pop culture is copyrighted, mostly by large faceless corporations.

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> Why should they benefit from these works?

You are young aspiring author. You have a family. You publish a greatly successful novel/series which would bring you $10M annually for at least 30 years.

You and your SO die in a car crash. Your children, 3 and 5 y.o. now without a parents.. and without ANY part of that probable $300M. Good luck, children, you did nothing at all.

If I were to die, I wouldn't care the slightest about what happens next. As far as I'm concerned, the entire universe ceases to exist that very moment.

Do you not appreciate the world that was prepared for you? Safe, healthy, entertaining, etc. Much of this work was done with future generations in mind. You could throw evolution in there too. It's nice to not be limited to a single cell.

On top of that, many people enjoy giving back, either to their kids or community. Preparing nice things for people after your death can bring comfort in life. That may come in the form of money, open sourced code, etc.

Honestly, the existence of the universe is meaningless to me if my consciousness is to somehow irreversibly disappear from it in the future. I find this whole idea of eventual mandatory death extremely cruel, and those who romanticize it cringey. So many people hurry to live their lives because "life is short". So many people make so many irrational, bad decisions for the same reason. And so many people accept this as some kind of immutable fact.

I'm looking forward to all that life extension/rejuvenation research that's gaining momentum right now. I don't want to die. Ever. I wish I could contribute to it, but my skill set isn't very fitting for this purpose. I doubt any one of the companies doing this kind of research needs a screaming fast android app or a java backend.

I think your absence due to death is irrelevant here. People feel good when they do nice things for others, and one of those things can be preparing an inheritance. That all happens before death.

Heirs benefit because intellectual property is inheritable in the same way as any other property, such as real estate. If I owned a valuable copyright, I'd certainly want my children to get it in the event of my death. (Though I still agree that copyrights endure longer than they should.)

How do you know they did nothing at all. The purpose of copyright, at least in the USA, is to encourage creators to create. I wouldn't be surprised if she people try to create that one last great American novel, so their children are taken care of. If the copyright can't be passed on, those creators might not create that last work of art.

Personally I think copyright should be 25 years. And not the life and then some. But that 25 years should extend past the life of the creator. Plus I don't want to create any motives to do away with the creators

> It's also really depressing that the entirety of our pop culture is copyrighted, mostly by large faceless corporations.

But if those faceless corporations hadn't paid for our pop culture to be produced and distributed, it wouldn't exist.

No, it would exist but it would be different because it would have been produced for self-expression, not profit.

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