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Comment by hammock | Hacker News Reader

The shorter the copyright, the less incentive there is to create something timeless and lasting (if copyright terms provide incentive to invest in creative work). If spoils are only provided for life+70 years, then an artist may have little incentive to create something that could be enjoyed for a period longer than that.

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That's such a strange thing to say. When artists create their work, do they rank them by the estimated number of years of their legacy, and discard the ones that fall outside of the copyrightable timeframe? I mean, are you implying there are artists out there who aren't creating works because they feel that this one is definitely a "life+75" piece of work, and so what's the point if all I get is life+70?

Imagine a copyright that lasts only one day. Would you ever write something to appeal to an international audience? There wouldn't be time enough to translate it.

Imagine someone lives beneath a volcano and knows that at some point an eruption will destroy his house such that he no longer extracts economic benefit from it. Do you think that the way he builds his house (e.g. using straw, or stone) will differ based on whether the eruptions come every 10 years or every 100?

If artists are motivated by the economic incentive afforded by copyright, then the level of that motivation is variable based on the length of copyright.

Are you saying that home builders and engineers should get paid royalties for as long as the house stands?

No, that's the wrong analogy. Hammock's comment applied to housebuilding would be that new houses would fetch lower prices (and thus there would be less incentive to build them), if after a few years your house would cease to be your property and become a publicly owned good.

> If artists are motivated by the economic incentive afforded by copyright, then the level of that motivation is variable based on the length of copyright.

While that's undeniably true, I think the objection is to your leap from observing that motivation significantly increases with term length at term = 1 day, to concluding it's still significantly increasing at term = life+70yrs.

Economic incentive can be measured and modelled, and while there isn't that much research into this, there is some. One Cambridge study (Pollock [2007]) found that the optimum length of copyright term is ~14 years (any longer and the economic benefits of works going into the public domain outweigh further increases in incentive to produce). Now, yes, economics models should be taken with a large grain of salt (especially ones when it's unfeasible to test their predictions). But it's a start, and certainly there don't seem to be any econ studies supporting a length anywhere near life+70 or longer.

Please let me know an example of works created by a future incentive. As far as I know, in many cases, timeless and lasting works are created either for a current incentive or for something completely independent to monetary incentives.

No incentive? What about the incentive of enduring name recognition, creating timeless works, and creating art? There is incentive that transcends monetary gain and for many artists that is what they're after. I am not saying they shouldn't be compensated for their work, if they desire compensation.

This clearly explains why DaVinci didn't leave us with anything timeless and lasting. Thank you.

Do people just downvote sarcasm or are people just not recognizing it? Thought this was hilarious.

When first reading, I didn't see it as sarcasm, just as an unsubstantiated claim. Rereading it, I'm still not so sure...

Poe's law. There is no parody so outrageous that someone couldn't make the same argument either sincerely or as a troll.

The corollary of course being that when you're so far gone that you can't even imagine anyone honestly thinking differently than you--that you're unwilling to even consider arguments in favor of other opinions--that you see what you believe as obvious and everyone as insane--then of course you will respond to any honest attempt at discussion the way you just did.

Of course it's possible that the original comment is sincere, but given how objectively nonsensical it is - and the same user's follow-up comment [1] is even more hyperbolic - it is far more likely that the comment is either a) a troll, b) some kind of performance art or c) so hopelessly dogmatic that it might as well be a troll.

And for what it's worth, I consider myself reasonably capable of considering arguments in favour of opinions that differ from my own. On many occasions I have changed my mind about an issue based precisely on arguments that persuasively challenged my assumptions or beliefs. I just have an expectation that those arguments should not be ridiculous.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5674857

He gave a sincere followup. It wasn't sarcasm.

I see what you did there

I guess hammock was being sarcastic ...

Poe's law strikes again.

I can only interpret it as sincere, or very deadpan.

It's a thing around here: There is no deadpan option available on Hacker News. There are only jokes that sometimes work.

We need a deadpan tag.

I actually pondered making that into an AskHN discussion after writing my reply - proposing to add "sarcasm" and "joke" tags more readily, but it occurred to me that this is precisely how it should be and how people like it.

It's a kind of hypersensitivity that acts as quality control. Instead of firing off sarcasm quickly without too much thought and cheaply pointing it out with a "sarcasm" badge, you only get to make jokes or be sarcastic if it is very, very well thought through.

I actually got away with (meaning - positive karma) a joke the other day, although I later pointed it out in a reply to somebody who didn't realize it. Still - felt like an accomplishment and I suppose that's how it should be.

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