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Re:In 'Sherlock Holmes' Rights Dispute, Conan Doyle Estate S... by fiatmoney on Tuesday August 05, 2014 @11:47PM (#8140901)
Wait, are you claiming to believe that the change in aggregate economic outcomes driven by a change in copyright assignment is enough to measurably affect aggregate life expectancy?

Besides which, the average member of the population will spend far more money on creative works than they will receive in revenue on them; it would be to their benefit to have the price of creative works drop.

Re:In 'Sherlock Holmes' Rights Dispute, Conan Doyle Estate S... by nkurz on Wednesday August 06, 2014 @01:02AM (#8141099)
No, the claim would be that it's discriminatory for a work by a person with a statistically short life expectancy to have less market value than a person with greater. Possibly true, but it's an interesting for of poetic justice for all works upcoming young black females to be inherently more valuable than than yet another bestselling sequel by an established octogenarian white male.[1]

As for the price of creative works, a common fear is that if copyright protection was weaker, artists might no longer feel properly incentivized to make creative works, and an uncreated work is not isn't available at any price. I have trouble sharing this fear, although the impact would probably depend on your taste in art.

[1] A slight poetic license, as statistically American black females have slightly greater life expectancy at every age than do American white males: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr62/nvsr62_07.pdf

Re:In 'Sherlock Holmes' Rights Dispute, Conan Doyle Estate S... by baddox on Wednesday August 06, 2014 @03:00AM (#8141375)
If a person with a shorter life expectancy values a lifelong copyright less than a person with a longer life expectancy, presumably that means the people value being able to pass their copyright onto kin or other beneficiaries (like charity) after their death. But what about people with no kin or beneficiaries, or people who don't want to pass on their earthly possessions after they die? They will also be discriminated against, by this logic.
Re:In 'Sherlock Holmes' Rights Dispute, Conan Doyle Estate S... by fineline on Wednesday August 06, 2014 @03:21AM (#8141416)
To decline an opportunity (choosing to bequeath to nobody) is not the same as to be denied that same opportunity. The latter could be discrimination, the former case could not, as who would be the discriminator?
Re:In 'Sherlock Holmes' Rights Dispute, Conan Doyle Estate S... by baddox on Wednesday August 06, 2014 @01:34PM (#8143689)
If any denial of opportunity counts as discrimination, then why discriminate against everyone who didn't write the book by prohibiting them from making copies? Copyright is inherently discriminatory, and any specific implementation of a copyright system will discriminate in certain ways against certain people.
Re:In 'Sherlock Holmes' Rights Dispute, Conan Doyle Estate S... by watwut on Wednesday August 06, 2014 @03:29AM (#8141438)
What about established octogenarian black female vs upcoming white straight young male?
Re:In 'Sherlock Holmes' Rights Dispute, Conan Doyle Estate S... by PhasmaFelis on Wednesday August 06, 2014 @02:25AM (#8141299)
I don't think I agree with Opinatus, but they're definitely not claiming that.