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Comment by mzmzmzm | Hacker News Reader

"Robert L. May died in 1976. But before he did, he established The Rudolph C ompany that holds the rights to Rudolph. Licenses are managed by a professional agency all to the benefit of Mr. May's children and grandchildren.

What makes this a holly-jolly Christmas story for me is knowing that the heirs of someone who would have been an unknown author are still benefiting from copyright protection, properly registered and renewed,"

I'm sorry but this is perverse. It's bad enough that we pretend ordinary property should be heritable, much less intangible knowledge.

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I think this thinking is very common at the end of life. You want to do Something Meaningful for your family, and passing on the fruits of your labor to grandchildren is meaningful, giving them education, medical care and opportunity.

There are lots of tax laws that support this.

Do you think it is immoral for creative ip, ip in general, or even money?

Didn't realize this was such a niche idea that you'd be downvoted. I don't think anybody really benefits when a child or grandchild coasts through life on the basis of their ancestor's success.

Everyone benefits from the idea that killing off the copyright holder is not profitable. If copyrights expired on creator death, there would be unwholesome motivations.

Another point for the copyright term being a fixed 5~10 years. The current system already incentivizes such agressive tactics to anyone with sufficient patience. If a teenager's favorite book has just been written by a young adult, they only have one course of action if they want to live to see it in the public domain for a few years.

Are there any notable instances of murder for copyright reasons?

The current law is still extends the copyright of a work until a time after the author's death. So if one wished to hasten the expiration of those rights, the motivation still exists; although perhaps diminished by a 70 year wait.

Having grandchildren “coast through life” is based on copyright lasting 70 years past the death of the author. But seriously having the rights disappear in 10 years is hardly an incentive for murder.

Honestly, I find it difficult to understand why a fixed 40 year term isn’t long enough to benefit from copyright. Trademark is already indefinite, JK Rowling is hardly going to be meaningfully harmed if someone publishes a work based on the first Harry Potter book in 2037. Less wealthy authors generally need to keep working anyway. Publish a hit at 22 and perhaps it’s time to start saving for retirement just like everyone else.

> there would be unwholesome motivations.

Which are life imprisonment for murder. Not some magical "my children must be fed millions without ever working until 70 years after my death".

Well, after accomplishing the author's untimely demise, the murderer (or facilitator) would have to wait 70 years to profit (unless 70-years future contracts on copyright expirations are a thing, I wouldn't know)

Seems a lot of risk and effort for a small chance of profit.

I have encountered people for whom it is an obvious universal moral truth that authors of works should be able to monopolize their works indefinitely, and any attempt to curtail it is an attempt to steal rightfully earned money from poor struggling authors.

I think that is a different take than supporting their poor struggling grandchildren. In general authors, aren’t making money off writing.

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