this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2023
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I have recently been thinking that copyright and patents should be enforced until the creator made back their money plus a set profit; like 30%. The reason for this is that it makes it similar to physical products which are often sold at cost plus some profit; usually around 20-50% depending on competition.
Doing it this way has some interesting side effects.
There could be some nuances. I’d imagine that there would be some threshold amount that covers smaller items. Maybe everything is covered for the first $200,000 or so. If one was claiming more than that for R&D then they would have to produce accounting demonstrating that amount. That way smaller creators aren’t necessarily burdened like a large corporation that does R&D for a living would be.
Obviously numbers could be fudged, but it could be set up so that is difficult. Accounting could be adjusted. Perhaps quarterly or yearly reports have to be made on which projects money was spent on. That way there would be a paper trail that would make it harder to pretend like more work was done on something than actually was.
Just a thought.
The reason this doesn't work is because there is no agreed price for someone's time. If I research for a book for 20 years while I was living on my normal paycheck how much money should I make before relinquishing my copyright? If I paint a breathtaking picture in 5 minutes on a napkin I will abolish my copyrights after selling a copy for 3$?
I imagine there would be a blanket amount that covers small creators. Something like $200,000. Now if a movie studio claimed that a new movie costs $150 million to produce then they’d would have to show the accounting for that. If they could then they would be entitled to maybe $225 million ($150 million + 50%) before the movie goes into public domain.