Hacker News Reader

Comment by wtallis | Hacker News Reader

That argument doesn't really work when discussing copyright extensions that were proposed and passed after the author's death. Fitzgerald wrote what he did expecting the copyright protections available at the time. Extending copyright while he was still alive could have provided him incentive to create more works, but extensions after his death couldn't.

View on HN

> Fitzgerald wrote what he did expecting the copyright protections available at the time.

Well, OK. That just proves he didn't need 70 to "forever less one day" in order to write it.

But the evidence is strongly on the side that he needed at least 50 years. I mean, did you see him writing Gatsby before the 1909 copyright act? No, you didn't, because before that, he'd have somewhere around 40 piddling years of copyright protection. But the 1909 act passes and sure enough, Gatsby comes out less than 15 years later.

Are you for real? Fitzgerald did not right the Great Gatsby before 1909 because in 1909 he was 13 years old.

If you have any sources about Fitzgerald's take on copyright terms I would love to read them, but without that you have absolutely no basis with which to say that there is "strong evidence" that he required more than 50 years.

If you sit on a novel or other creative work worth mentioning in any short list of the Great American $foo because 40 years of protection isn't enough, then you're not an artist. As if 10 more years makes the difference between releasing and not releasing a great work of art.

I'll also point out that it's hard to write about the roaring '20s before the Copyright act of 1909.

> I'll also point out that it's hard to write about the roaring '20s before the Copyright act of 1909.

Yep. It's almost as if such an argument would be too absurd to take seriously.

> I'll also point out that it's hard to write about the roaring '20s before the Copyright act of 1909.

Through Copyright, All Things Are Possible!

Hail Copyright!

How is that evidence? Considering that much of the content of the book was based on the time it was written and published in, it would not have been written in 1909.

Is my sarcasm detector off? Or are you just a really bizarre troll?

Your sarcasm detector is off.

I don't know; Poe's Law makes it hard. When there are people that actually believe things that absurd, it becomes to discern intent without some side channels (that are mostly missing when communicating with text).

That's why Windows 3.11 wasn't written until after the Sunny Bono act. Just think if we had strong copyright in the 50s. That's probably why we don't have flying cars yet.

Sarcasm doesn't work on the Internet.

Are you positive that this is a internet issue? I think it is a user problem.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com