The Economist Weighs In For Shorter Copyright Terms

lxmota writes "The Economist says that long copyright terms are hindering creativity, and that shortening them is the way to go: 'Largely thanks to the entertainment industry's lawyers and lobbyists, copyright's scope and duration have vastly increased. In America, copyright holders get 95 years' protection as a result of an extension granted in 1998, derided by critics as the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act." They are now calling for even greater protection, and there have been efforts to introduce similar terms in Europe. Such arguments should be resisted: it is time to tip the balance back.'"

Comments

When they're right, they're right

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A return to the 28-year copyrights of the Statute of Anne would be in many ways arbitrary, but not unreasonable.

It has been reported that 14 years is closer to optimal.

Maybe reasonable would be 7 years, or two.

And of course these speaches on copyright make a good primer on what to expect when the copyright law is percieved to be unfair.

Re:When they're right, they're right

[TheRaven64]

The solution to that is to extend something like trademark law (which is perpetual) to cover characters and settings. If you create a sequel to something in the public domain then you'd have to clearly market it as unauthorised, unless you received permission from the creator to use their trademark. You could still write the sequel to Gone With The Wind, but it would have to be marketed as an unofficial sequel and there could be no (even implicit) indication that it was canonical.

This would also help protect big content franchises. Star Trek would now be out of copyright, but if you wanted to create an official novel, TV show, or film set in the universe then you'd need a license to the trademark. This would cleanly separate things into official material and fan fiction. Of course, given some of the recent output from Paramount, the fan fiction might be better, but that's the trademark owner's problem.