this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2023
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The first 20 years should be free. I think that's a reasonable timeframe for an author to make a reasonable amount of money from a work - or at least to determine if it's worth extending the copyright.
After the initial 20 year period, it should need to be renewed every decade, on an increasingly steep scale. Let's face it - some works can go on making money for a very long time. I think the creators deserve to continue making money off their works if they can, but only if it's really worth it to them, and they're pretty sure that the work will continue to be increasingly profitable. I suggest that the fees to extend the copyright be based on the profits from the work, and should increase with each extension, up to say 80% of the previous decade's profits at 60 years. That way, virtually everything would fall out of copyright by that point, unless the holder was very sure it was going to be incredibly profitable going forward.
Note that you're ONLY focusing on the future economic prospect and impact of the creator, and not how it could potentially serve the audience for decades, centuries, millennials in other ways. Like becoming a cultural icon. No, think about the dollars. Right here, right now.
Well, yeah. Speaking as an author, we kinda like to eat. Without copyright, we're being paid in exposure; if our shit gets popular, nobody's going to buy the official hardback for $30 (of which I'll see a few pennies) when they can buy the perfectly legal knockoff hardback for $1.
I don't have time to write for the love of the art. It takes me about 2-3 months to crank out 100k words of a first draft, then god help me amounts of time to revise it to be fit for human eyes. If I had to hold down a regular 9-5 to pay my rent at the same time, I'd produce a book about every five years or so (that's how long the first one took).
Fuck all of that. I deserve to be paid fairly for producing something of value just like people in every other profession. Get rid of copyright and you're basically ensuring that the fiction market is 95% AI, 4% independently wealthy people, and 1% people who just love to write so much that they'll do it even after coming home from a 12-hour shift, and just like the attention they get. Which, I mean, I get it; we're worthless, and don't deserve to make a living producing works of art that make other people happy, right?
My few published pieces were done because I wanted to try my hand at writing, but those weren't my day job. But if I were writing for money, I'd want enough time to profit off of my work because creating stuff people want is absolutely hard work. What that term is, I don't know. That's a huge discussion with no easy answers. But whatever the term is, I'd like to see creators paid for their efforts.