That would have a few undesirable consequences... for example, you wouldn't hire a 70 year old writer for your commercial project no matter how brilliant they are.
The complexity of our legal system is in many cases justified. The problems are often the numbers (duration of copyright protection etc.)
This makes sense when you’re thinking of a painting or a book.
Who owns the copyright to Windows or MacOS? A corporation. How do you deal with that?
> you wouldn't hire a 70 year old writer for your commercial project no matter how brilliant they are
Commercial projects are works-for-hire and the copyright is not owned by the person who does the work.
The proposal for the limit of copyright needs to be refined.
In the US, the current rule is:
> For … a work made for hire, the copyright endures for a term of 95 years from the year of its first publication or a term of 120 years from the year of its creation
> for example, you wouldn't hire a 70 year old writer for your commercial project no matter how brilliant they are
You could do "life of author or X years, whichever is longer". Or include a period after death.
But you see how the complexities come in.
It is said that the vast vast majority of works don't earn anything significant after a few years in any case, meaning the only possible reason to have long copyrights is so that a very few people can get stinking rich. But those people already got rich, in the first few years.. society does not benefit from them getting richer.
20 years fixed term is my proposal.
Not that I'm arguing for 30 per se, just that I don't see what goals of copyright would be advanced more by adding an "or until death" complication.
Somebody decides to make a movie based on your book? You get nothing at all from it... The movie bit would be problematic even for books that were reasonably popular at the time. e.g the Witcher adaption came out almost exactly 20 years after the last book, for GOT it wasn't that far from being the case as well (at least for the initial volumes). Studios would be incentivized just to wait a couple of years to avoid paying anything.
I think it could be reasonably to have a fixed limit if the rights are held by corporations, though.
Justifications for copyright are always built on edge cases, seemingly moral justifications of an empirically immoral practice. Yes, it'd be nice if a single handicapped mother of 2 coild see her children rise out of poverty thanks to her writing talent after 50 years. In practice, this person doesn't exist and building society around that scenario is not a good thing.
These 'what ifs' have the same value and do the same damage as 'who will think of the children' do for human rights.
How is it empirically immoral? Historically it was one of the best things to have have happened to creative professional in history. Before it writer could make a living by publishing books unless he was independently wealth or had wealthy patrons to support him.
> Justifications for copyright are always built on edge cases
No they are based on the assumption that humans are generally rational and more likely to create content if they can make money by doing that.
> The vast majority of intellectual output loses value extremely fast.
Well that's great.. but then it means that your argument is mostly pointless since if that content has no value why are you bothered by the author retaining the ownership of it. Who would benefit from it entering public domain?
Whatever my personal opinions about copyright, this whole thread is about copyright set at 2000 years vs 20, so that answers your first 2 points.
For the last one, 'losing value' obviously doesn't mean they can be safely binned, but that the publisher has no return on keeping it in publication. Again, this is what the entire thread is about.
Imagine you invent a new kind of computer memory and it only becomes wildly profitable after the patent expires.
The purpose of copyright is NOT to let the original author capture all value of their creations.
And even independently of copyright "with the blessing of the original author" IS a selling point that will give authors ability to market their past works without restricting everyone else's speech. And any new works they create will automatically gain much more attention after their past works become popular - encouraging them to keep creating, just as copyright should.
How is this relevant? We are not talking about the author selling the copyright of their work and then someone making more money than they did from it...
> The purpose of copyright is NOT to let the original author capture all value of their creations.
What is it then?
> And even independently of copyright "with the blessing of the original author" IS a selling point
Well that gives way less bargaining power to the author and even if they get paid anything by the corporation profiting from their work it would be much less than if they retained copyright.
> And any new works they create will automatically gain much more attention after their past works become popular
Well if you are happy to work for free while someone profits from your effort for "exposure" that's something you are free to do.
> without restricting everyone else's speech.
How is copyright restricting anyeone's speech? Everyone is free to create original content if they want to.
That's not the same for a work of fiction or a piece of music. Case in point apparently books sales for the Odyssey are massively up - when it was originally written in 7-8 BC :-)
Also most books etc don't make much, if any money - an publisher/author might rely on a the cummulative effect of a number of revenue streams built over time.
Also the effect of exclusivity is different - for patents you are potentially blocking the area of innovation you have patented by your exclusivity.
That's not the same societal effect as somebody not being able to copy mickey mouse.
So they aren't exactly the same - however I'm not proposing a 3000 year copyright :-)
My real point though is that IMO, whatever duration we pick shouldn't depend on the creator. It would tend to undervalue their later creations, treats corporations differently from people in a way that doesn't seem relevant to copyright, and oddly might lead to the untimely demise of creators.
I find your Odyssey example to be relevant. Homer's death means people today can release their own translations or adaptations. I can find a public domain version from 100+ years ago, or a modern translator can profit from their work so that I can see their take. I can watch the Italian 1911 silent film version for free on youtube [0], or pay for Nolan's modern take. The expiry of copyright gives me options.
This is completely different from IP around an invention - you don't want a single entity owning the rights the wheel forever - that would stymie human progess.
So I don't think it's right to conflate the two.
And it was written without copyright. So why should the rest of us give up part of our free speech rights for longer than 20 years in order to enrich authors, when its proven that we can get great works without doing that?
The question is not whether longer copyright ever lets authors profit more, it's whether society benefits as a whole.
There is a big difference between not being able to republish or cut and paste from the works of JK Rowling and not being able to make and sell an electric motor.
ie my point was that in terms of societal benefit there is a big difference between IP protection and copyright.
JK Rowling managed to write Harry Potter series despite it reusing lots of well worn tropes. I fail to see how it's existence is stopping other people being equally creative.
And yet, practically all over the world, 70- to 80-year-old men are being hired for leadership positions to run the world. Regardless of how brilliant they are.