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A comment on What will enter the public domain in 2022. Parent comment

Re:What will enter the public domain in 2022 by chrismcb on Thursday December 02, 2021 @11:34PM (#29426650)
Limited time because it is in the Constitution. But also it allowed others to build on your creation. Sherlock Holmes is a wonderful example. Most of Holmes is in public domain. And recently the has been a rich at of culture created. Movies, television series, additional books. Personally I think the main thing that is broken is the the expiration date. The Constitution says "finite" and while there is a finite limit any limit that is longer than the average lifespan is essentially unlimited. Basically nothing created in your lifetime will be in public domain. And to me that goes against the spirit of "finite"
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Re:What will enter the public domain in 2022 by bruce511 on Thursday December 02, 2021 @11:51PM (#29426743)
I agree, the time limit seems arbitrary. And sure there are a handful of works that are famous enough to allow for the creation of new, obviously derivative works.

Not that we are exactly short of original movie and TV content - but now we can have a few more derivative sherlock homes, so yay...

So if finite means a time limit, then isn't any limit arbitrary? Should an author live to see their work exploited in their own lifetime? If we make it say 40 years, how will RMS feel when oracle starts deriving Gnu Hurd code to make a new OS?

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Re:What will enter the public domain in 2022 by criddell on Friday December 03, 2021 @08:54AM (#29430020)
The first release of GNU Hurd was in 1990. So Oracle could use that release to build from in 2030. Do you think Stallman's copyright on the 1990 release of GNU Hurd is still giving him the fuel he needs to keep creating?

From https://copyrightalliance.org/education/copyright-law-explai...:

> The primary purpose of copyright is to induce and reward authors, through the provision of property rights, to create new works and to make those works available to the public to enjoy.

I think knowing copyright ends in 40 years would do more to incentivize new work than the current set of rules. If a copyright is held by a corporation, the duration should probably be half of that. Having copyright last beyond a creator's life makes no sense to me at all because nothing new is created by that person.

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