My thanks to everyone who responded to for SFWAns and potential SFWAns. I tried hard to be objective in phrasing the questions, but as Jed noted, I didn’t quite succeed. I don’t mind that for a couple of reasons:
1. The questions were only meant to elicit the range of opinions on copyright. Someone would have to do a proper poll to understand where people fall on the range.
2. I’m not sure it’s possible to express the issues objectively. The language has become polarized. Some people believe every possible infringement of copyright is piracy. If I suggest that a kid sharing an unlicensed file and someone selling one are not the same, they only hear me babbling, because piracy is piracy, and only idiots or liars would say otherwise, so which am I, an idiot or a liar?
I’m an idiot. If anything I ever say makes you wonder if I’m a liar or an idiot, the answer is I’m an idiot. Here’s how to tell: Liars try to stay out of trouble. Idiots walk right in.
What I believe about copyright depends on the proposition.
In an ideal world, there’s no copyright, because in a world of sharing, there’s no need for profit.
But I don’t live in an ideal world. I don’t even live in Canada. I live in the United States of America, where over over forty million people cannot afford health care. I need copyright to survive as a maker of stories in this far-less-than-ideal world.
But I don’t need a copyright system that assumes I’ll need money from my work for seventy years after my death.
Every writer who questions copyright has a different idea of what the fix should be. In my better-but-not-perfect world, I’d like a system that recognizes the differences between people and corporations. Each would be able to own a copyright for five years, but people could renew their copyrights until they died, while corporations could only renew their copyrights once.
As for filesharing, I’m with the folks who say that if money is being made, the artist should have a piece of the action, but if there’s no money, why worry? No one has done a definitive study that shows how filesharing hurts artists. A great many examples show that filesharing helps artists.
And ultimately, life’s short. If you have no evidence and two choices, pick the one that makes you happiest.
Enough on copyright! Have a great weekend in this imperfect world!
I’m holding out for a ‘reduce the government deficit’ copyright scheme. I’m happy with ‘life + 5-15 years’ for individuals. For corporations, I want an annual registration fee, equal to (year-in-copyright)squared. So, if this is the tenth year they want to keep something in copyright, pay $100. If this is the one hundredth year, pay $10,000. Allow prepayment and require a minimum payment - $1000 would be nice, $1015 would buy the first 14 years of copyright.
Scott, with my standard preface of “hey, I like just about anything better than what we’ve got,” I like that. I do think Disney should be paying a whole, whole lot to keep the Mouse out of the public domain.
I like your scheme just about better than anything else I’ve heard.
The good thing about requiring frequent renewals–whether before or after the author’s death–is that they help with the issue of copyright orphans, which is a big deal to me.
I think the distinction between individuals and corporations is slightly off — if you allow unlimited transfers, this just means the corps pay individuals to hold copyrights for them. But change it to “original individual holder” vs “anyone else” (buyer, heir, corp, etc), and it’s a good scheme.
Mind, I’m still mostly in favor of flat copyright terms, probably with a registration requirement with a generous grace period (to avoid orphan works issues while not screwing over creators) — the question of incentives for lower-remaining-lifetime creators is still significant, and I’m afraid I don’t weep many tears for creators having to release their babies 50-75 years after they’re born, even if they’re still alive at the time. But I understand that some people feel very strongly about this in the other direction.
The constitution says that copyright is for securing “to authors” for a “limited period of time” the exclusive right to their writings. What we need is for the Supreme Court to rule that anything over 100 years is too long to qualify as a “limited period of time,” since the original author is quite likely to be dead after this time anyway.
It’s quite clear that a million year copyright should not qualify as a “limited period of time,” so the Supreme Court is going to have to draw the line somewhere. I suggest one hundred years as a nice, round, figure which is quite a bit longer than the typical author’s life.
Requiring copyright holders to actively seek an extension every so often would also be really nice, but I think that should be up to Congress, where it has no chance of actually getting through, and not the Supreme Court.