I've never been able to understand how this is even a colorable argument, and yet it comes up all the time. Yes: the term of copyright lasts long after the death of the artist. But it's that term that gives value to the work in the first place; it's what enables artists to sell their work to distributors.

It doesn't, because nobody knows what works have commercial value 70+ years into the future and thus current business is not conducted on that basis. That's how many popular works end up in random hands in the first place, like in the case of Ravel - they aren't seen as particularly valuable at the time, but become sleeper hits when they earn a special nostalgia or new technologies emerge (television, internet, etc).

Good luck selling a movie to Warner Bros on the premise that it'll be a real money-maker in 2090s on telekinesis-vision platform.

This argument requires me to believe that Warner Bros would see no difference in value between a property that becomes public the moment the author dies and a property that has 70 years of exclusivity after that point. Obviously, the difference in value between those two properties is immense, and that value is realized during the author's lifetime.

Only the first few years after publication matter, because that's when virtually all of lifetime revenue is earned. Revenue earned beyond that is usually not enough to even justify proper preservation, leaving huge archives to rot away.

I can make you a list. Cinderella, Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, Superman, Batman, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Marvel, Game of Thrones... You could sell WB the 2090 rights to any one of these, except the ones that are going into the public domain (and those they already own of course). Look at that, the system is 'working'.

Do you buy anything based on what it may be worth 70 years after your death? Do you think any company thinks that long term?

1 year probably. 5 years pushing it. 10 years is basically off any reasonable financial projection any company is going to make.

Yes, clearly they all do. Media companies don't push for extended copyright terms just to spite you. They have easier ways of spiting you than that.

They push for extended copyrights because of a very small number of valuable assets that are nearing expiration, not because they care about increasing the value of content being churned out anew. A prospective term extension's marginal increase in the future present value (FPV) of new works is a rounding error at this point.

Now, for those small number of extremely popular works, an extension does ensure continued investment, at least in the same manner of previous investments. But that has to be weighed against the unfathomable amounts of other content that will continue to rot.

Defenses of patents and copyrights always discuss the theory--how in theory they promote investment. They rarely if ever discuss the empirically proven results. "Against Intellectual Monopoly" does explore the empirically proven results, though they do so more persuasively for patents than with copyrights, if only because there's much more data with patents, and the argument against copyrights is strongest as it concerns reducing terms, not eliminating copyright altogether, IMO. (Also, in their accounting the evidence does justify pharmaceutical drug patents as necessary for recouping costs to overcome other extreme regulatory burdens.)

The marginal value of any random piece of content is a rounding error. It's a hitmaker business; the winners pay for the enormous number of losers.

That's not how that works. Jerry Seinfeld's impressive car collection isn't paying writers' salaries. Which isn't to say he isn't reinvesting some of his windfall, but his dollars don't travel as much as if they otherwise could. It's like the difference between the marginal value of $1 to a pauper vs $1 to a prince; that $1 has much more worth to the pauper (i.e. the struggling artist who could benefit from public domain assets) than it does to the prince, even if the prince spends it on the poor.

As other people keep pointing out, investment decisions don't much care about what might happen 50 years in the future. Windfalls that happen in the future increasingly inure haphazardly; they don't actually figure into the finances of how the industry works, not even as magic helicopter money.

Economists have run the numbers. They have models for this. That's why extension advocates principally hide behind theory, not empirical evidence, because the empirical support is poor at this point.

Jerry Seinfeld's impressive car collection isn't paying writers' salaries; it was rather the other way around. Seinfeld (and Larry David) were the lead writers for the series.

My point is that his car collection isn't paying writers' salaries today. He's not investing all of his windfall back into the entertainment industry. I'm sure he's doing alot of good work, but you don't build an economy around philanthropy; you build it around economic incentives. And Seinfeld and David didn't need the incentive of the multi-billion dollar windfalls, above and beyond what they might have made with shorter terms, to take the risks they took; ditto for NBC's decisions to invest.

EDIT: Let me put it a different way. If all that matters is any marginal effect (and especially if we ignore opportunity costs in the public domain, which is admittedly difficult to quantify), why not make the copyright term 1000 years? Or in perpetuity? If every time someone says, "let's extend it by 10 more years, and here's a hypothetical by which it might incentivize someone in theory", by what principle are you prepared to put your foot down? My principle would be evidence-based, and what evidence exists favors stopping terms extensions, and probably rolling them back somewhat. And fortunately that evidence is also consonant with economic theory, no less so than the hypothetical arguments for continued extension.

Why would Seinfeld's compensation for work he produced in the 1990s be compensating writers today?

I was responding to your retort,

> the winners pay for the enormous number of losers.

The original point from someone else way upthread was that the vast majority of revenue streams from published works, especially film and TV, are front-loaded. Yes, most works don't return much value; and, yes, the big winners cover the losers. But the context of this whole subthread is prospective marginal values of copyrights decades in the future (including windfalls in the distant future--I'm trying to strongman your argument) and the degree to which they incentive production of more content.

Your original point (AFAICT) was that people ignore the prospective value of extended terms and its effect on pricing and incentives in the present. And my point was that the FPV of such marginal returns are de minimis, even taking as a given that they're positive and include huge windfalls. Your point makes most sense as a retort to people wishing to roll back copyrights to, say, 20 years or especially 0 years--i.e. only have the right of first publication.

The more meta point is that we could argue hypotheticals all day, but what matters most of all is the quantifiable. Arguments from strong patent and copyright advocates are often analogous to, e.g., the shoe bomber hypothetical in security theater--yes, shoe bombers pose a hypothetical threat, and in fact a shoe bombing incident has even come to pass, but that alone doesn't necessarily justify the airport security regime established in response. To justify it we must look (as best we can) at the quantified costs + benefits, and then make judgements accordingly. So the fact that, hypothetically, marginal returns from copyright extending past 50+ years in the future might effect pricing regimes in the present--or even if we know they in fact do--doesn't resolve the question; it only begs the relevant question: does that value exceed the costs?

I think you're talking past each other.

The parents point I think is that if you make 100 films today you don't know which will be hits but you can expect X to be and they will pay for the losers.

I don't think that requires the trickle down effect that you seem to be referring to with Seinfeld.

Would you support a copyright term where fees increase exponentially then?

'worthless' copyrights could expire after a year. Copyrights after 50 years can be maintained for X million?

Of course you do, because even if you're gonna sell it in one year, the amount you can sell it for is going to be determined by its long term value.

Ok. What's the long term value of farm land? It's going to last forever so it's value should be approaching infinity right?

Or is it based on a 10 year ish payback, with some modifiers for interest rates, the prospect of getting planning permission?

Companies do not think that long term. They are not basing their investment decision on the residuals after 10 years, much less 70

Further what's the point of copyright? Is it to post hoc reward those that have already made successful things? Or is to encourage the creation of new works? If it's the latter, then the value after a year is entirely irrelevant.

Further most new works basically make all their money in the first 12 months. 95% of copyrighted works are basically worthless after 12 months. So again you're just optimising this for a handful of big companies.