> I feel like this is true, but anytime I speak with colleagues in the arts (even UX and visual designers), they all say they are happy with copyright being lifetime of the owner + XX years. They (a) want the income for their legacy in case their products are still in use or appreciated decades later and (b) they want to control the output of their intellect.

If I'm an (e.g.) accountant, my work does not generate income for my offspring after I pass.

Having children (and even grandchildren) coast on work that was created decades ago is ludicrous IMHO. If you can't profit off your work after 14+14 years (as per above) then I'm not sure what you're doing, but it's not (economically) beneficial to society.

> If I'm an (e.g.) accountant, my work does not generate income for my offspring after I pass.

Because an accountant’s work is timely and transactional. Creative works may have lasting value for multiple customers.

As a contrasting example: pretty much all other income generating assets can be passed down.

Copyright is a compromise between society and authors, and I think that’s the right way to frame things.

(Also some countries have this same compromise for assets such as land, where land “ownership” is subject to time limits)

> Creative works may have lasting value for multiple customers.

Which is why the artist may deserve royalties over a number of years: they did the work (a possible multi-year investment of time/effort can deserve a multi-year payback period). It does not explain why their (grand)children, who may not have even been born when the work was done, deserve royalties.

The Hobbit was published in 1937, and the final volume of LotR in 1955: does Simon Tolkien (b. 1959) deserve royalties?

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Tolkien

I didn't say anyone deserved anything -- I'm just saying that as a society we do have other (potentially) income generating assets that do pass down to heirs who didn't "do anything to deserve them".

e.g. Some cultures think it is normal that someone can own thousands of acres of wilderness land that they've never even seen just because a distant relative hundreds of years ago had a piece of paper that says they own it. Other cultures believe the earth is a collective resource that is merely used by humans for their lifetime.

> They (a) want the income for their legacy in case their products are still in use or appreciated decades later and (b) they want to control the output of their intellect.

Copyright is a practical compromise between society and them; their interests are not absolute.

> their interests are not absolute

The question of interests is a cultural debate, and also not an absolute either direction. In one culture the interests of the author could be held as an absolute; in another culture the exact opposite could be held as the value: no copyrights at all.

That's up to the society to debate. We see considerable cultural variance across the globe on the matter.

Isn't the question whether it's reasonable for people to be rentiers? Clearly lots of the population are, but wouldn't it be better if they carried on creating rather than sitting back and doing nothing for the remainder of their place on earth?

I speak only regarding the view expressed in the U.S. Constitution[0]. Other cultures may view it differently, but in my opinion, the US is where copyright is most out of control (save for a few other nations, such as Japan).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Clause

> The question of interests is a cultural debate

Not at all, that question has quite real and far reaching economic and political consequences, it's not about endless debating, it's about proper and timely deciding, precisely in the framework of economics and politics within the Constitution.

Which constitution would that be, again?

When asked "do you want more or less income?", most people, including me, will answer "more".

That doesn't mean it's always the right decision.

Of course they do, their bias is to keep all the cards in their favor. Our (the consumer's) bias is to shorten copyright.

Remember, ultimately it is the consumer who pays the creator; thus the consumer has a vested interest in negotiating how long copyright should last.

Which is absurd, because most creators would benefit hugely from an expanded public domain.

I think citation would be needed on this. Obviously any artist producing fully original music or art doesn't.

And many content creators might benefit from an expanded public domain, or they might not... There's already tons of creators, they seem to be getting by? Well, actually, some are getting by and most are probably hobbyists or underwater much like most arts. I'm not sure expanded quantities of available characters would necessarily change much.

> Obviously any artist producing fully original music or art doesn't.

I would suggest that artists who say they're producing fully original works are just poorly educated in art history. Making something that has no prior influences would be extraordinary in the modern world.

Also, the entities most capable of exploiting long copyright terms are corporations. Individuals simply don't have the resources to keep something relevant decade after decade save for a very small handful of exceptions like J.R.R. Tolkien.

I'm not even really advocating for or against the copyright position.

I also think you're missing my point a bit. Just cause you study lots of works and create an original creation which borrows influences isn't the same thing as requiring use of a copyrighted piece of work.

It's pretty silly to suggest I was implying artists have no influences cause I classified works without any copyrighted material as original.

My point was more... just cause a bunch of copyrighted work becomes available does not necessarily imply creators and artists lives will be substantially different or better off.

maybe 'creator' in the youtuber sense

But most creative people I know aren't really that interested in trying to co-opt someone else's work

Oh really? You don't think all the creators who do things like make video essays on 20 year old movies would benefit from not getting the rug pulled out from under them? You don't think they would prefer being legally in the right making money from analysis of media that was a generation ago?

You don't think the Techmoans and Technology connections would prefer having better demonstration material than whatever recordings from 1912 exist, so that they could actually show you what they are trying to demonstrate without having their livelihood threatened by a capricious and byzantine system hell bent on pleasing a few megacorps?

You don't think the creatives who made "The Katering show" for example would prefer that more people watch their artistic output than have it locked behind some business leaving it languishing in a random digital storefront rather than letting more people buy it because they just cannot be assed? Oh, you don't actually have to guess, because they uploaded a youtube video where they encourage people to pirate their work so they can see it.

Creatives and artists tend to enjoy their work being consumed and riffed on (not plagiarized) and well adjusted artists recognize that there's "nothing new under the sun" and that remixing and riffing are essential parts of the creative and artistic process.

Hell, the music industry even understands this, which is why letting songs get licensed out for remixes and future use is common.

What "Creative" people do you know?

However, ultimately, few people really are holding any cards. Most will have to compromise a great deal, to be able to generate income and benefit from existing publishing infrastructure.

Sounds a bit unlikely, that most of them will make a living with stuff older than 14 or 28 years, their legacy creations. Sounds more like they are chasing a dream, which most likely will not be achieved by most of them.

Mmmm..

I don’t know man?

I actually don’t mind 14+14 for corps. Because corps could conceivably never “die”. (In fact, I wouldn’t even be too opposed to getting rid of the +14 part).

But for individual people who make things, I think if they’re alive, it should be theirs. And I’m a guy who’s not a creative.

I just think if you come up with a painting, or story, or video game, why should a big corporate be able to swoop in and just copy it while you’re alive without paying you?

The copyright should lapse after a reasonable amount of time following your death. But while you’re alive, what you made should be yours.

> But for individual people who make things, I think if they’re alive, it should be theirs.

But it is theirs... well, until they sell it. We aren't talking about the things they make but about copies of them. I can't believe there are people who still don't understand the difference.

The copies aren't theirs to begin with, copyright isn't natural property and it's not a natural right, that much is set in stone. Don't be confused by the ridiculous name "Intellectual Property".

I'm not saying the legal right called copyright should not exist but it should be paired back to the terms it was originally limited to, there are good reasons for those limits.

Corporations can't create copyrighted works, only people can. The date of copyright expires is based on when the actual humans authors die.

Yeah, this sounds very similar to people who vote as if they're temporarily embarrassed billionaires. "There's a minuscule chance my work will become super lucrative for decades, so I want a super long copyright" when they don't realize that a much shorter copyright can help them creatively in the near term.

Lot's of people are short sighted, like children who would consume candy every day if their parents didn't tell them no. Current copyright laws allowed Disney to essentially buy up all of popular culture. This has not been a good thing for the world.

Its a shame that people who supposedly work "in the arts" can be so blind to the world.

> they all say they are happy with copyright being lifetime of the owner + XX years

    "It is difficult to get a man to understand something 
     when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
    ~Upton Sinclair

Copyright is meant to reward innovators while it's still an innovation, and reward society once it has been fully inculcated.

Would the original creator prefer to rest on his laurels and collect checks instead? yep.

Would all the hundreds of people out there wanting to innovate on that copyrighted idea also like to make a buck? yep.

It's all a balance of competing interests.

Well. It's supposed to be.

Copyright has nothing to do with innovation. That's patents (publish your tech secrets in exchange for exclusive use for a period of time). Copyright is about protecting creative works, which are, by their nature, much much easier to copy than to make. If I write a book, and bring it to book printer to print 10,000 copies, I think we can all agree we prefer the world where that printshop can't turn around and print as many copies as they want, selling them themselves, and never paying me a dime. So I need some legal concept that says my creative work is mine alone to copy, that I can sell exceptions to.

Comparatively, society loses out on a lot less with long copyright terms compared to long patent terms. Long patent terms stifle innovation, long copyright terms just mean I can't freely distribute my own copies of others' art.

IMO, the happy compromise would be a tapering of copyright over time. For the first, say, 2 decades, you have contemporary copyrights. You can choose who to license your rights to, including the production of derivative works and the like. For the next 2 decades after that, a price is codified such that you still are guaranteed a cut (variable on whether the work is a verbatim copy, an adaption, or something significantly different). For the next 2 decades after THAT, you get a smaller cut, and non-commercial use becomes a free-for-all. After 80 years, it's a free-for-all.

You're right on the innovation speech, mea culpa.

You surprise me with a proposal for shorter copyright terms. Interesting!

For fun, here's an interesting discussion countering my own earlier statements - Once a work is in the public domain, it seems there's very little to do with an idea except drag it through the mud. Audacity is what drives commerce i suppose. For example as soon as Mickey Mouse entered public domain all the news could talk about was horror films and "adult" films capitalizing on the "what're you gonna do about it" of the moment.

Similarly when Peter Pan entered the public domain there was a short glut of "now he's a nightmare / villain" representations before becoming irrelevant again.

Imagine creating something like Sesame Street or Mr Roger Neighborhood then a mere 30 years later everyone has more fun making "Mr Grouch Goes On A Murder Rampage" bloodbath and "Mr Rogers + Freddie Kruger Teamup" art / film / trite youtube videos.

It'd be pretty soul crushing.

"Tragedy of the commons", as it were.

With this in mind, perhaps... your idea could deal with that via tiered pricing of "official / approved / canon" works are charged the standard fee whilst "unofficial / unapproved" works tithe a larger proportion of the proceeds to the original author...

The biggest annoyance here is the discussion always focuses on protecting individual creators whilst the laws and benefits seem to go to large corporations. e.g. Disney would have no problem using Peter Pan without consequence, while the rest of us wouldn't dare use Steamboat Willie.

Of course they are happy with that, they are not the ones affected by the problem and even benefit financially from it.

Of course they are. If I could arrange for someone to hand me money over the course of my entire life for work I did 25 years ago, I'd absolutely take that deal.

... it may not be in society's best interest to offer it to me though.

(Honestly, the better deal would be for society to hand all of us money from a giant taxation pool monthly and, freed up from the need to put so many hours into working to eat, we could do a lot more writing, performing, and general making-of-art and fundamental-no-capitalist-benefit scientific exploration).