

Ask HN: Why should we keep or end patents/copyrights? - fezz

In reference to this opinion: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.billboard.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;columns&#x2F;music-festivals&#x2F;6582997&#x2F;steve-albini-copyright-has-expired
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tjr
As a software developer, writer, and musician / music producer, I personally
still find value in copyright, but it has been taken to absurd heights. I
would like to see it drastically reduced, preferably to a term of ~7 years.
Maybe ~15 years at the absolute max.

EDIT: Ah, I misread the question. _Why_?... The purpose of copyright, as I
understand it, was to give authors [limited] exclusive opportunity to profit
from their creative work, in order to promote more creative works being
developed.

Under the current system, an author could create a single work and profit from
it forever. In some sense, that promotes more works, as more people hope to
win the same lottery, but more typically, a single work isn't enough to live
on. _Continually_ creating more and more works is more sustainable as a
business, and does more good for society.

So give authors seven years to profit off of a single work, and then it is
released into the public domain, for any author [still including the original
author] to adapt into more new (and copyrightable) works.

Is this a perfect solution? I don't know, probably not. I think it'd be quite
nice to author a single work and live off royalties from it the rest of your
life. But that doesn't seem to jive with the intent of copyright to promote
the creation of more works.

