Once the money involved in creating that content has been paid, copyright should automatically expire.
It sounds to me like you are unfamiliar with Hollywood Accounting. Have you ever wondered how the MPAA can claim that the companies it represents keep losing money, yet somehow those companies never seem to go out of business? The movie studios never post profits, because they deliberately spend money on nonexistence services -- they have contracts with shell companies that simply hold their money and use it to fund the next movie. The purpose here is to cheat actors out of their fair share of the profits. Any copyright system that maintained monopolies on works up to the break even point would only result in even more widespread use of these tactics.
Really, copyright terms should be shortened, reined back to 20 years, maybe even less. This would be a compromise that helps establish a strong public domain without eradicating copyrights entirely. Of course, that will never happen, since the copyright lobbyists have more power in congress than the rest of the population...
Movie companies do go out of business, see MGM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM imploding violently. It is just rare as most companies make enough money to still run. Please do not say all companies cheat or use shells, the reason why only making 20 million on say a 10 million dollar film is bad is the way investors work. In a movie you need to pay for Advertising, Actors and Investors. Investors get first cut of the profits, then Actors/Directors, and finally you pay off the ad budget in accounting. Its a simple way of accounting for all the expensive, budgets are separated into pure costs (say 10 million), then bonuses/percentages of gross, and finally paying off separate fees (Ads, legal, the electric bill, etc)
I am an accounting minor, so they make us learn all of these horrible things, but they make the world go round.
Copyright is too long though, blame the Mouse and International Copyright expanding, leading to a perfect storm of CC being needed to prevent the total loss of copyright for anyone under 82 years old.
Uh, actually look at things that are sent out at this model. Pay Per View events are NOT cheap, at around 24 USD a pop, and they are subsidised by ticket sales (see the Wrestlemania events, or Mixed Martial Arts matches. For the vast majority of televised events , people would not be willing to pay 24 dollars (what happens when you remove that ad revenue) for them.
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Once the money involved in creating that content has been paid, copyright should automatically expire.
It sounds to me like you are unfamiliar with Hollywood Accounting. Have you ever wondered how the MPAA can claim that the companies it represents keep losing money, yet somehow those companies never seem to go out of business? The movie studios never post profits, because they deliberately spend money on nonexistence services -- they have contracts with shell companies that simply hold their money and use it to fund the next movie. The purpose here is to cheat actors out of their fair share of the profits. Any copyright system that maintained monopolies on works up to the break even point would only result in even more widespread use of these tactics. Really, copyright terms should be shortened, reined back to 20 years, maybe even less. This would be a compromise that helps establish a strong public domain without eradicating copyrights entirely. Of course, that will never happen, since the copyright lobbyists have more power in congress than the rest of the population...
Movie companies do go out of business, see MGM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM imploding violently. It is just rare as most companies make enough money to still run. Please do not say all companies cheat or use shells, the reason why only making 20 million on say a 10 million dollar film is bad is the way investors work. In a movie you need to pay for Advertising, Actors and Investors. Investors get first cut of the profits, then Actors/Directors, and finally you pay off the ad budget in accounting. Its a simple way of accounting for all the expensive, budgets are separated into pure costs (say 10 million), then bonuses/percentages of gross, and finally paying off separate fees (Ads, legal, the electric bill, etc) I am an accounting minor, so they make us learn all of these horrible things, but they make the world go round. Copyright is too long though, blame the Mouse and International Copyright expanding, leading to a perfect storm of CC being needed to prevent the total loss of copyright for anyone under 82 years old.
Uh, actually look at things that are sent out at this model. Pay Per View events are NOT cheap, at around 24 USD a pop, and they are subsidised by ticket sales (see the Wrestlemania events, or Mixed Martial Arts matches. For the vast majority of televised events , people would not be willing to pay 24 dollars (what happens when you remove that ad revenue) for them.
For private spaceflight, this is a big deal, if this pans out NASA might come a nocking for ISS trips since Japan can move Cargo..