Reasonable Anger In Europe Over Ridiculous Copyright Extension

One would expect China and India to follow USA commercial practice and use the established structures of IP. But USA-IP is not intended to be good economics in the real sense, it is supposed to benefit the USA. When the USA is a net importer, it will be the loser. It will start to disavow international IP.

But IP is fairly dumb in an information economy so it must die out in the not too distant future anyway.

I've never understood why that's such a horrible fate. And even if it is, the purpose of copyright is not to protect the feelings of authors.

What suffering occurs, exactly, when works enter the public domain? The public domain does not prevent works from being sold, for example. The author of a work loses exclusivity but he does not lose the right to benefit from the work.

A big problem with copyright is the name - it sounds like it concerns a "right" when in fact it is a privilege granted (in the US) by the Constitution. To quote the FSF, if copyright were a right, "nothing could justify terminating this right after a certain period of time".

Copyright restricts access to goods -- that is bad. It only makes sense to do that in so far as it is counterbalanced by doing some good -- supporting production. That is something to weigh up by evidence, and the lifespan of the creator seems not particularly germane.

And what exactly is being 'suffered'? If you look carefully, you will find nothing there. The loss of control of the work? But you only expect that control because of the current law. You cannot justify that expectation based on itself. The connection between creator and creation is abstract. Using a creation hurts the creator no more than poking a voodoo doll of them.

You might say you still 'feel' hurt by uncontrolled use. But by restricting other people's use you are very directly, materially, controlling them. Ought there not to be a good reason for telling someone else what they can or cannot do? Is some vague 'sense' or 'feeling' enough? It really does not seem to weigh up in favour of the creator.

And one cannot simply say that other people are irrelevant, that it is only about what is right for the creator. Laws or rules are not made to serve one (kind of) individual but to serve everyone -- otherwise why should everyone have any interest in obeying them?

Public domain concept is very similar reasoning open source, individuals contribute to the group cause the group result is far greater than individuals.

The assumption with creative works is that the creator didn't create in a vacuum. They in fact, draw on a rich set of creations, experiences, etc of society. One's creations aren't entirely their own. Society recognizes the effort though and grants creators specific rights for a limited time. But, eventually (and no not a 150 hrs later) creations must return to the wellspring from which they originated, aka the public domain.

So we can make their work free once they're dead? That doesn't seem fair. What's wrong with something going into the public domain? It's not terrible.

Why shouldn't my kids be able to inherit my IP just as they inherit my PP?

If the rights expire upon my death, they're less valuable. (Would you buy IP from someone old or sick under such a system?)

The only fair thing to do at this point would be the old 14 years + optional extension.

Then everybody has a chance to benefit from what they have created and the original bargin is kept with the public.

Then there's the economic value of a work: very few copyrighted works have an economic life of one year, let alone a century. This is particularly true since copyright protections were extended to all works rather than just those which were registered with a copyright office (this post is copyrighted, however my economic interest in it is nil, still, it will extend for the next 120 years).

The real argument for extensions is copyright term in works of enduring value whose copyright is about to expire. This is the "Mickey Mouse Copyright Law" in the US. Walt Disney's first Mickey Mouse cartoon, "Steamboat Willie" (itself borrowing very heavily from earlier works) was published in 1928, and there's been a strong trend in extension to prevent works from at least this date from ever entering the public domain.

This results in the exceptionally strong protections of copyright being extended to a huge volume of valueless (and often ownerless in the sense that no true owner can be identified or contacted) to protect a very small number of works of enduring economic value, though by no means does this promote the directive in the US Constitution "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" (other nations have their own justifications).