I'm still not convinced any one entity deserves to keep a creation for so long under monopoly given by the society (some interesting discussions in 1869 [1] about this), but let's assume they do. I'd still like to see a system where you only get copyright for new works for 5 years. Then you have to pay $1,000 to renew it for another 5 years. And then the fee increases geometrically (and also adjusted to inflation), to something like $1 million+ after 50+ years, because if the work is worth that much to you after so much time, then you should be able to pay for it, and it would also "give back" to the society that keeps granting you the monopoly for that work.
Then the average lifetime of copyright monopolies should be around 15 years, which is actually about what it was when copyright laws were first created (the average would be dragged down a lot by people who wouldn't care about stuff they made in a week enough to pay $1,000 5 years later, but most of the "real works" that would be worth it, will probably have it for around 30 years or so.
We see it with books that after 10 years most of them are basically dead, and nobody cares about them anymore (can't find that link right now, but some of you probably know what I'm referring to). There are some "Mickeys" here and there that are relevant 100 years later under copyright, but it's more like 1 in a million works. The rest is abandoned - but it still retains the copyright on it so nobody can re-use it to improve the culture of the society (even if it just means having a company like Google find all the old books and digitize them, something they've barely won, and is actually getting appealed right now). I think that's just wrong.
I'd prefer a fixed copyright term that applies to everyone, possibly with different terms for different industries. That way rich and powerful studios enjoy the same protections as starving first-time novelists.
It would be grossly unfair for some small open source project to enter the public domain after five years, allowing commercial developers to fire most of their R&D staff and just assimilate five year old OSS without paying it forward. For that matter, any large publisher would just have to bury new authors in obscurity for five years to be able to steal their work for free.
I understand a compounding registration fee is meant to appease the behemoths who can afford it, but such a plan would end up working in their favor.
Copyright protects more than the ability to commercialize a work. The terms must be shortened, but they must also be blind to the wealth of the copyright owner.
I propose instead, as an example for discussion, a fixed term for duplication rights of 14 years from publication (+/- some years depending on industry), with a single low-cost renewal. For moral rights, life of the author plus a few years, with a 100 year maximum (people are living longer these days).
If you are paying an R&D staff, you aren't paying them to be 5 years behind open source development. You are paying them to be ahead of open source and your competitors. No one is going to make money by ripping off five year old OSS.
5 years is WAY to short. Harry Potter was published in 97, and the film was released in 01. They paid a million dollars for the rights. In your world they would wait a year or two and do it for free. A recent study claimed there were few books on Amazon older than 25 years. So that sounds like a good length.I'm not sure what the length should be, BUT the current length which is longer than the average human life span, is too long.
> Harry Potter was published in 97, and the film was released in 01. They paid a million dollars for the rights. In your world they would wait a year or two and do it for free.
For patents, you do have to pay maintenance fees to renew a patent at the 3.5, 7.5 and 11.5 year marks after issuance to keep it active, else it goes abandoned. A vast number of patents go un-renewed and lapse that (1) few patents turn out to be "profitable", and (2) most patents don't last their full terms.
The geometric part of the idea is what really caught my eye. I think there's something to be said for a steeply escalating cost for maintaining publicly protected monopoly rights.
Then the average lifetime of copyright monopolies should be around 15 years, which is actually about what it was when copyright laws were first created (the average would be dragged down a lot by people who wouldn't care about stuff they made in a week enough to pay $1,000 5 years later, but most of the "real works" that would be worth it, will probably have it for around 30 years or so.
We see it with books that after 10 years most of them are basically dead, and nobody cares about them anymore (can't find that link right now, but some of you probably know what I'm referring to). There are some "Mickeys" here and there that are relevant 100 years later under copyright, but it's more like 1 in a million works. The rest is abandoned - but it still retains the copyright on it so nobody can re-use it to improve the culture of the society (even if it just means having a company like Google find all the old books and digitize them, something they've barely won, and is actually getting appealed right now). I think that's just wrong.
[1] - http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130503/17414322946/discus...