Friends first aired in 1994 and recently Netflix paid $100 million to keep it through 2019.

There's also a number of musicians that are still getting paychecks because of a song written in the 60's.

To say no-one creates art/tv/music with long term income in mind seems a little simplistic.

Money may still be made from it, but that doesn't mean they were originally created with the idea that today they'd be making money this way. Most of the money is generally made within the first couple of years after release.

My preference for copyright would be 30 years or until death of the author, whichever is longer. If there's no living author or the rights have been transferred, then it's simply 30 years. This gives plenty of time to make money from it, it means the author never loses control over their own thing during their lifetime, and their family can benefit from it if the author dies shortly after publication.

More than this is just corporations milking creations from the past.

How can we infer from your comment that these shows or songs would have not existed if the copyright term was 20 years?

On the opposite side, we have a clear example from the patent system that 20 years is enough to have an endless pipeline of new products and inventions....

> To say no-one creates art/tv/music with long term income in mind seems a little simplistic.

One could say the same thing about patents in an alternate universe with life of author + 70 year patent duration.

Yet, here we are.

I am fairly supportive of IP law in general, but I don’t believe that the creators of Friends would have passed on making on the series if they were only going to able to monetize for 20 years.

20 years out at only a 5% discount rate pa is a 65% discount. At a more reasonable 15% discount rate for a proven show, you’re left with under 4% 20 years out. For an unproven pilot, you probably handicap that significantly more.