Copyright doesn't need 95 years to get the job done

Re:Copyright doesn't need 95 years to get the job done by tptacek on Monday January 03, 2022 @07:47PM (#29789446)

I agree it shouldn't be forever. Maybe it should even be shorter. But I don't look at the market for original authorship of cultural works and think "wow, this a lucrative field to get into". Most authors are just barely getting by.

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Re:Copyright doesn't need 95 years to get the job done by cortesoft on Monday January 03, 2022 @07:56PM (#29789555)

That is also part of what the article is pointing out… after a few years, only the wildly successful works are going to continue to have demand enough to make copyright matter… 99% of creators aren’t going to be affected at all by the length of copyright, so 99% of creators will not care either way.

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Re:Copyright doesn't need 95 years to get the job done by tptacek on Monday January 03, 2022 @08:44PM (#29790061)

I know I'm saying this for the 50th time on this thread so I'll keep this short: it is not the case that just because only 1% of works are still throwing off cash 50 years later that a 50 year term only benefits 1% of work. The probability that any given work will be profitable 50 years from now is priced into lots of deals; that's how star-search businesses work.

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Re:Copyright doesn't need 95 years to get the job done by cortesoft on Monday January 03, 2022 @09:23PM (#29790433)

I’d be curious on the economics for publishing… probably varies by the genre. I can’t imagine most tech publishers, for example, are banking on profits in 50 years.

Someone probably could get industry numbers for how much publishers make on copyright older than 50 years… and with the time discount for 50 years of not having the money to use for other purposes… and see how much each creator gets in the star-search lottery

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