> It promotes creativity by enlarging the possible payout one can receive for one's labors.
That may be, but remember that this all comes at a cost. Copyright is essentially theft. All art is based upon that past. No one exists in a vacuum and all works are created in a context of deep history and culture that belongs to all of us. When we are denied the right to copy or make derivatives of a work it robs us of part of our culture. People in Afghanistan can legally print and read that Salinger book but we cannot. Is that right?
Tolkien is probably a bad example. I'm pretty sure his main motivation in writing was his exploration with language and not fat royalties. Furthermore, both him and his wife are dead. Why the hell isn't LotR in the public domain?
Copyright is essentially theft? Only in the sense that "property is theft." Copyright is protecting the creator of a work.
Let's forget the issue of derivative works for the moment, since that's not what was at stake in the original poster's argument-- we're talking about wholesale copying. And if people in Afghanistan can legally copy a Salinger book without paying him or his publisher, then my beef is with Afghanistan, now with the fact that others can't also rip them off.
How does it rob you of a part of "our culture" if I require that I get paid for any re-publication you do of work that I create?
I'm not saying that LotR shouldn't enter the public domain someday-- but I don't think that 20 years is the right time frame.
Copyright and property are fundamentally different things with different histories and different treatments under the law. Almost all human societies have property or at least a system of possession which excludes others. Copyright is a modern invention.
If I take your car you're out a car, but if I take a song you're singing you don't even have to know.
> How does it rob you of a part of "our culture" if I require that I get paid for any re-publication you do of work that I create?
Have you heard of Google books? It's an incredibly ambitious project where google went and scanned a bunch of library books and put them on the web where they can be searched and read. For works in the public domain you can download the full text of the book and do whatever you want with it. It's like the world's biggest library, except the only books with text are the ones from the 1920s and earlier. Everything else is just a dust jacket.
I've been reading a lot of early 20th century books. When I find a good one I can email my friend a like to a book by Upton Sinclair or H.L. Mencken. But I won't be able to do that for decades with Salinger, if ever.
Creative works don't belong to anyone, but to all of us. We grant artists a temporary monopoly to encourage them. This I can live with, but please lets actually make it temporary.
Why shouldn't LotR be in the public domain? The author is dead. Who is collecting royalties?
Can I just pop in to say I'm pretty disappointed to see that all the pro-copyright comments in this thread, including many well-written ones and sensibly-argued ones like the parent, have been modded down?
That may be, but remember that this all comes at a cost. Copyright is essentially theft. All art is based upon that past. No one exists in a vacuum and all works are created in a context of deep history and culture that belongs to all of us. When we are denied the right to copy or make derivatives of a work it robs us of part of our culture. People in Afghanistan can legally print and read that Salinger book but we cannot. Is that right?
Tolkien is probably a bad example. I'm pretty sure his main motivation in writing was his exploration with language and not fat royalties. Furthermore, both him and his wife are dead. Why the hell isn't LotR in the public domain?