There is copyright, but it's non-transferable and only lasts for 2-3 years. After that time, yes, anyone can copy and distribute it.
My idea here is that you would have the option of either paying right now, or waiting when the copyright expires and getting it legally for free. In our current system people don't even consider that copyrights have an expiry date, they operate as if they're effectively indefinite. And the current system doesn't work anyway — the majority of the society just isn't having it. Everyone has pirated something at some point.
I think the big problem here is that 2-3 years is almost no time at all. With 2-3 years, basically everyone will wait for the next book in the Game of Thrones series to come out of costing money.
Covid has been nearly 2 years, and for many of us it feels both like yesterday and also like forever ago, for example.
And then you'll have people that want to watch the movie of something, so they're willing to pay the video company for instant access, but the movie is based off a script someone wrote, or a book someone wrote, and that book is at least 2 years old.
RR Martin would make zero dollars from Game of Thrones, for example.
> RR Martin would make zero dollars from Game of Thrones, for example.
idk... how many people are still watching game of thrones?
whats the long tail look like for popular books?
my impression was, most books that make any money are hugely popular for a short time, then basically fall off a "sales cliff"... i wonder if anyones done any comprehensive stories about this subject.
My point was that RR Martin wrote books, and then *movies* were made off the books. If the copyright period is 2-3 years, then a movie company would just need to wait a couple years and RR Martin would get zero dollars for his work (except the small number of people that buy his book) but more people watch movies and shows, so they would be willing to pay the premium for the movies based off his content just a couple years later.
Most video games already quickly become cheaper much less than 2-3 years after release. Some are even given away at some point. Yet most sales still happen close to release. The expectation that the average consumer has the patience to wait for 2-3 years if they can get something now for a reasonable price is odd.
