Re:What will enter the public domain in 2022
by jedberg on Thursday December 02, 2021 @08:32PM
(#29425553)
When I first thought about this, I also landed on the public bounty method. The problem with that is it lets monied interests own everything. If you, a small creator, make something cool, there is no bounty you can set that Disney can't afford, and once they make it public, they can certainly exploit it better than you can.
As for revenue accounting, it's actually pretty easy (for some definition of easy). If someone else used your IP and you had to sue them, how much would you sue for? Use the same method to calculate your own income. Yeah, it's definitely a jobs program for accountants and lawyers, but overall it provides a strong public benefit.
I'd suggest a different system, you have to name a "public domain bounty" for the work, and pay X% of that per year (+$100). At any time anyone can pay that bounty and the work reverts to the public domain (so that they, and everyone else, can use it). You can, of course, adjust the bounty as it becomes more or less valuable for you to keep the work private.
The government keeps all the money (to avoid perverse incentives to raise bounties if you expect someone to pay it).
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Edit: But I'm much less ambitious than you, if you asked me how to fix copyright from scratch, my answer would be "reduce the term to 10 years, and require registration". It's not perfect, but it's simple.