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Comment by bloak | Hacker News Reader

For a number of reasons, I don't like the duration of copyright depending on how long the author lives.

* It's age discrimination against older people.

* If the copyright ends up being owned by some corporation (or effectively owned: some corporation has exclusive rights), which is what usually happens for any valuable copyright, it seems weird that the duration should be based on the lifetime of the author.

* It creates problems later when it's not obvious who the author was or when the author died.

* It could easily be abused by authors adding their grandchildren as co-authors. (I'm a bit wary of mentioning this in case I give anyone ideas. It has happened already, but so far not very often, as far as I can tell.)

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If you're going to make these arguments about IP, you can also make them about property rights in general.

What is it about creative IP that makes it different to other kinds of family inheritance, or other kinds of rentier ownership?

Why does the argument that "Ownership rights should expire as soon as possible for the common good" not apply to huge land and property holdings, some of which have been passed down for centuries, with far more obvious economic and political effects than - say - Tolkien's descendants not needing a day job?

> If you're going to make these arguments about IP, you can also make them about property rights in general.

No, physical property are both excludable and rivalrous goods [1], for them ownership is a natural right.

OTOH, IP are naturally non-rivalrous, and only semi-excludable through establishment of copyright law. IP ownership is just societal construct trying to fit market mechanisms to them.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goods

Also it's important to point out there is another class called anti-rivalrous goods which may be important for the discussion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-rival_good

>An anti-rival good is one where the more people share it, the more utility each person receives. It is the opposite of a rival good. Examples include software and other information goods created through the process of commons-based peer production. The term was coined by economist Steven Weber.

It is unfortunate and confusing that copyright and patents are described as intellectual "property" because intellectual property is fundamentally different than other property rights. Property laws as originally formulated applied to rivalrous goods where consumption by one consumer prevents consumption by others. Copyright and patents apply to non-rivalrous goods.

Rivalrous goods are relatively easier to protect and monetize without the assistance of the state. Non-rivalrous goods are pretty much impossible to protect/monetize without the assistance of a state.

Thanks I never had learned non-rivalrous goods and its'a. great way to explain the IP != property

you wouldn't steal a car, err i mean download, right!

> If you're going to make these arguments about IP, you can also make them about property rights in general.

In general, property rights don't end when someone dies, they're just transferred to someone else. People can even take advantage of the fact that property rights endure by selling the right to take possession after their death.

A lot of physical "property rights" are equally dubious though and probably shouldn't have the reverence people have for them. The reason why land ownership reform (splitting up of big land holdings owned by the wealthy but farmed by the poor) was a big issue in 19th century Britain (and Ireland which was completely part of it then) and still is an issue in the developing world today, is ultimately it is arbitrary that somebody gets to "own" land just because they are descended from aristocrats who conquered it centuries ago.

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