I surely can't be the only one who finds it really weird that copyright lengths depend on the author's lifespan? Copyrights act as a sort of financial instrument that can be bought and sold. Imagine suggesting an office space lease that lasted for X years following the death of some specific named person. Everyone would think you are insane! But if it is the rights to a book, now everyone acts like an author's life expectancy should reasonably be a factor the term that any subsequent owner can hold the rights for their book

Reminds me of a precursor to life insurance, if only I could remember what it was called... Kind of a lottery / pool, all participants paid into it and the last survivor inherited the lot. IIRC.

Come to think of it, reminds me of life insurance: that's also a financial instrument the value of which depends on the lifespan of a specific named person.

Unless there's something even closer to what I was warbling on about, it was probably a tontine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tontine

It makes sense if you consider that royalty fees are the retirement plan for many authors.

so an author that creates a blockbuster book at 25 years old is automatically worth more than an identical work created by a 85 year old?

I truly don't get it - why do you feel that you are somehow owed the free use of something someone else created with their blood and sweat?

You aren’t entitled to simply reprint or republish someone else’s work for profit but copyright is blocking derivative and reinterpreted works from entering the public domain.

Take Cinderella. Place her in the Wild West. Make her lose a cowboy boot at a village fete. But retain the names from the original so this heroine Cinderella. Clearly derivative, right? Also violative of Disney’s rights to Cinderella’s name and likeness.

What copyright blocks (in this instance) is our ability to start from a common source of understanding - naif with evil stepmom rescued by hot prince - to extend the story in random directions.

This block should not last in perpetuity is what many of us are saying.

In software, this would be akin to preventing forking.

> Also violative of Disney’s rights to Cinderella’s name and likeness.

How the fuck can they have any rights to her name?!? I'm fairly sure that's been the name used in English for the heroine of that story from the first English translation of the folk-tale collection of the brothers Grimm. (Or does this particular story predate even that; maybe Perrault or La Fontaine?)

You are indeed entitled to simply reprint or republish someone else’s work for profit if it is in the public domain. Copyright blocks most derivative work (with a few exceptionns like parodies), but also blocks verbatim unauthorized copies.

> Copyright blocks most derivative work (with a few exceptionns like parodies), but also blocks verbatim unauthorized copies.

Maybe verbatim unauthorized copies is all it should block? Hey, it's right there in the name, isn't it -- Copyright? It's not called "parodyright" or "derivativeright"...

Translations, revised editions (to fix typos, add examples or change the bookcover) and adaptations to other media formats are examples of derivative works, so copyright law would be pretty useless without that kind of protection.