That said, I’m still not hearing a particularly compelling reason why copyrights should revert. Regardless of how long it takes for something to get popular, why should your protections expire such that it becomes legal for me to wholesale copy something you made, and turn around and sell it as if it were mine?
Having said that, I do agree it's unrealistic to assume that that truly democratic institutions would abolish long copyrights. I think that the majority of people who are invested in this issue imagine that they are just one bestselling book away, one hit song away, one TikTok meme away, from being wealthy creators. The idea that someone else might re-upload and unfairly profit from their own habanero sauce snorting video, that they worked so hard to perfect, is anathema to them.
> I think that the majority of people who are invested in this issue imagine that they are just one bestselling book away […] The idea that someone else might re-upload and unfairly profit from their own habanero sauce snorting video, that they worked so hard to perfect, is anathema to them.
I wouldn’t be quite so glib. The history of copyright, and the state of the debate today, is far more interesting than your assumptions here. First of all, the driving force behind updates to the copyright law in recent years is big business, not TikTok memers. Second, the economic sectors of Information (based on copyright protected code), and of Media and Entertainment (based on copyright protected artwork), are larger than utilities, construction, education, and corporate management combined, for example. This is a large and core part to our economy and not something that is primarily being discussed because of a few artists with little more than hopes and dollar signs in their eyes.
This is compelling for me. Not so I can have free stuff, but because it's beneficial to society to have access to these things without worrying that it's going to vanish. Think about kids in school, there's tons of literature and plays that they can use for free already, but wouldn't it be nice if they could read something more modern that would maybe get them more engaged?
Another argument I hear sometimes is that when you release something to the public, doesn't that in some sense belong to everyone? The original Star Wars trilogy is a significant piece of modern culture, and it hasn't been released in it's original version since 2006. That really doesn't seem right. I'm not necessarily saying it should be public domain right now, but it would be nice to watch it with my grandkids without apologizing for the terrible scenes they added in the 90s.
How could anything be a better reason than that?
And it's not like I will take all your business just like that. People will still buy from you by default. If people buy from me instead, that means I am providing some value that you are not providing. And that is good for society.
> it’s not like I will take all your business just like that.
Yes it is, that is exactly what happens when copyrights expire, and the debate we’re having is precisely over whether it should be legal to take all of the business because you’re better at marketing than the original creator. If you don’t do it, someone else will, more so now with the internet than ever before.
> People will still buy from you by default
That’s an assumption that doesn’t stand up to a reality check, it’s rare for media that expires copyright and has a revenue stream to continue providing that same revenue in the face of competition. This is exactly why Disney has asked for extensions.
> If people buy from me instead, that means I am providing some value that you are not providing. And that is good for society.
Not automatically it’s not. The easiest “value” to provide is to steal something you didn’t make, and offer it for less money than the original because you don’t have anything to recoup. That’s not good for society, and it’s why copyrights exist in the first place.
Copyright is a service that is provided so that you can continue to remotely exert control over something that is no longer in your possession. The fact that you are allowed to control what I do with the thoughts in my brain, and control what I do with what I have legally bought from you, is a temporary favor to incite you to create cool stuff.
And yes, simply selling something at a lower cost/it being free provides value to the people. People will gain access to the media in the most convenient way possible, and spending as little of their money as possible. That's value.
Don't forget, due to the competition it will be a race to the bottom in terms of price. Nobody is going to get rich just off of your creation. The major benefactors will be the buyers, not the sellers.
This is a pretty big and hyperbolic straw man that immediately makes it hard to take seriously. Copyright does not control your thoughts. Copyright prevents me from redistributing your work without permission, and nothing more. It has nothing to do with what I think about it or say about it or what you do with your own copies. Copyright does not prevent you from reselling your own copy that you legally bought, nor from doing anything you want with your copy aside from making and distributing new copies to others.
> That’s an assumption that doesn’t stand up to a reality check, it’s rare for media that expires copyright and has a revenue stream to continue providing that same revenue in the face of competition. This is exactly why Disney has asked for extensions.
One interesting thing this reminds me of is the case where due to the publication technology of the day, the quality of the work as available to the general public is significantly inferior as compared to the master copy sitting in the vaults.
If copyright was for example only twenty years and simultaneously releasing a higher quality version of the same work still wouldn't qualify for its own copyright term, would we have seen the various re-releases of older works as newer and better reproduction technology became available? Under that assumption for example, most of the Beatles' albums would have been already out of copyright by the time the first CD re-releases appeared in our timeline.
This might admittedly only be a temporary problem because it can be argued that storage formats eventually will be (or already are) good enough that yet another higher quality re-release won't be necessary in the future (and at least for books without illustrations/pictures/special special typographic features it never really mattered anyway, because unless the print quality was truly dire, the original text can always perfectly be recovered), but at least for the past transitions we've had for audio from vinyl to CDs and generally digital music formats, as well as for video e.g. VHS to DVD to BluRay etc. I'd argue that there was a certain benefit to the public that the holders of the high-quality master copy were motivated (because of continuing copyright) to actually spend the money and do the work of re-releasing those works in a higher quality format.
I know there are notable examples of this, but they are notable because it's incredibly rare.