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Originally Posted by Early Riser Will, you don't seem to understand that there are people out there who make their living through the sale and reproduction of their images and that perhaps the only valuable aspect of their business that they can pass onto their Heirs, is the copyright to their images. |
Oh, I understand that quite fully. In my view, there is no reason that anybody other than the artist him/herself (excepting the purely mechanical aspects of sales/brokering and distribution of work) needs to profit from the work of that artist. Just because, say, an ancestor of mine made some wonderful and very popular artwork fifty years ago means absolutely nothing to me today. Am I guaranteed by some law, natural or legislated, that I
will benefit from the lives of my ancestors? No, I am not. In fact, nature would suggest the exact opposite: once the ancestor is dead, they're nothing more than rotting biomass.
OK, let's say, just for the sake of argument, that the current copyright situation (life plus 75)
is valid. Now why should we stop there? Why should the family lose copyright with the grandkids? Why shouldn't the great grandkids get to own that copyright as well? And after them, what about the great-great grandkids? What about the great-great-great grandkids?
Where do we stop? The logical conclusion to our thought experiment is: never.
Things that enter public domain during our lifetimes were created by people who died about 75 years ago. I feel assured that there are many works which will fade into obscurity before they enter public domain, and that's a net loss to all of humanity. The longer the delay before the public can enjoy the heritage of their culture, the less rich our cultural heritage actually
is. And you know who loses? Everybody loses.
The Constitution specifies "for a limited time" when discussing copyrights. Things that are created today, unless the creator dies tomorrow and you're
very young, you have no hope of seeing in the public domain. They do have a technical limit, but for purposes of the lifetime of a person, they're infinite, which goes against the spirit of what the founding fathers wrote.
Will