Narnia Fanfic issue highlights the stupidity of lengthened copyright

[David VanDyke]

https://teleread.org/2019/03/26/author-francis-spufford-seeks-permission-to-publish-narnia-fanfic/

[Post-Crisis D]

I, for one, am glad for the lengthened copyright terms.  It means neither I nor my (likely completely fictional) children will ever have to see Hollywood ruining any of my books and not at least having to pay me (or those likely fictional children) a dime.

[David VanDyke]

So you think Life+95 is significantly better than Life+50?

Life+50 seems plenty to me.

Look how the Conan Doyle estate tried to fight Sherlock Holmes passing into the public domain--but there comes a point where the culture as a whole needs to own these great works, and where they can be used without restriction. Just like patents. And, things can always be trademarked forever/repeatedly, if they meet trademark standards.

[Post-Crisis D]

So you think Life+95 is significantly better than Life+50?

Yes.

Some creators don't become appreciated until after their deaths and, in such cases, if their work wasn't able to provide for their families during their lifetimes, at least they can provide for their families posthumously.  And, even in cases where they did well within their lifetimes, I still favor their estates being able to benefit from the copyright for as long as possible, especially when the family respects the works and honors the wishes of the creator.

Sometimes it's a bummer.  I mean, Star Trek is a good example.  It's too soon for it to be in the public domain in any event but it would be nice if it were because some of the fan productions had better stories and better respect for the source material than some of the official productions, especially the more recent ones.  (And, too, it's under corporate control rather than Roddenberry's estate.)

But, as disappointing as it sometimes may be, I'd still prefer the creator and their estates be able to benefit from their works for an extended period of time rather than have them fall too quickly into the public domain where someone like Disney can start mining them and not have to pay licensing fees or anything to the creators or their estates.

[Bill Hiatt]

I'm concerned about orphaned works being lost completely. According to archive.org, which fought extensions of copyright terms in Congress, thousands of books perish every year because it isn't clear who holds the rights, and the copyright term is now long enough that a work preserved only on physical media would probably perish before anyone was entitled to digitize it without permission. Then there are cases of copyright holders who are careless with what they have and just sit on it. It's a Wonderful Life was decaying in studio vaults, unused, and was saved only because the copyright term expired. Under today's copyright terms, we would have lost the movie completely. There are also plenty of cases of heirs not keeping a book in print (which, with ebooks and POD, wouldn't be much trouble now). What's the point of having a book taken completely from public view because an heir doesn't care enough about it to do anything? That, too, can be a loss to the public.

We also need to keep in mind the fact that it's corporations that keep pushing for these longer and longer terms. They'd like to get to a point where anything with corporate authorship never enters public domain.

Copyright protection is important, but so is a vigorous public domain. Yes, longer terms mean heirs retain control longer, but that isn't always a good thing. There needs to be a balance. I'm inclined to think that a term potentially longer than two lifetimes might be shifting the balance too far against public domain to be a good thing.

[Jessica]

So you think Life+95 is significantly better than Life+50?

Life+50 seems plenty to me.

Even that's too long honestly. It's only for the benefit of publishers IMO who can go on milking a bestseller author long after they passed away.

I care about copyright as long as the creator is alive. As soon as they pass away they can't care about their work anymore so why should it be still protected. Possible offspring should make ends meet by themselves.
There could be a period of transition after the creator died, though. Something like half a year or until the end of the year of death.

[Robotech_Master]

You know, writers and other IP creators are basically the only people who have the ability to create something that will still bring in new money for their descendants after they die. A furniture builder can't make any more chairs or tables after he dies. An auto mechanic can't fix cars from beyond the grave. These people have to save up money they earned in life if they want to be able to pass it on to the next generation. What if said auto mechanic gets hit by a bus and killed? Better hope he had life insurance...

But someone who writes a book creates a thing that can still be sold and earn money long after they pass on, for people who didn't have anything to do with them being created or may not even have known the writer himself when he was alive. It just doesn't seem fair somehow.

And certainly, increasing the copyright length for authors who are already dead doesn't inspire them to create more new works. Before Sonny Bono's bright idea, Narnia would have begun to enter the public domain in 5 more years. Now it'll be 25. But C.S. Lewis isn't exactly writing any more books even though he's now got more time for his descendants to make money from them!

But leaving all that aside and thinking about it from the reader's point of view...it's just a pity that we don't have the ability to engage creatively with stories we love without potentially breaking the law. Telling stories is a natural impulse. It's a way we can make sense of things, or engage with people who share that similar context. (The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Darmok" uses this as its central metaphor--a race of people who can only communicate through references to stories they have in common.) Cutting us off from being able to do that is like cutting off part of ourselves. Somehow, it needs to be legal to do that with media created within our own lifetime.

Not that I ever expect that to happen within my own lifetime... :(

[RiverRun]

There's no guarantee that families will respect the wishes of creators. Harper Lee chose not to publish the earlier version of the novel that eventually became To Kill a Mockingbird, even though she could have made quite a bit on it. However, her sister chose to publish it very soon after her death. That aspect of the issue is pretty much a crap shoot. Sometimes, a family would preserve the integrity of the original work and the author's wishes, other times not.

Just to be super picky and finicky, Harper Lee was still alive when Go Set a Watchman was published, and is reported to have confirmed that she approved the publication of it. I'm so glad she did because I loved reading it.

[munboy]

I'm fine with copyright laws. If material became free use when the creator died, every two bit hack writer would be trying to cash in on popular stories as soon as the author died. (not saying this is the case with this dude, apparently he's a good writer but I haven't read any of his stuff.)

Alice in Wonderland is a good example. I love the original Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, but I've read so many bad retellings or "continuations" on the story (not to mention the movies) that I refuse to read anything that falls in the retelling genre. I know there's some good retelling stories out there, but the sheer number of bad drowns out the good. Putting a long limitation on the copyright at least gives the family estate the chance to filter out the truly horrible money grabbers until at least a generation has passed.

[TimothyEllis]

I think the whole concept of anyone being able to pick up your characters and universe the day after you die is nothing short of truly horrifying.

I'm all for extended copyright.

I'm also of the opinion all fanfic should be licensed by the author. Just seeing whats going on with Potter fanfic is also totally horrifying.

[Bill Hiatt]

There's no guarantee that families will respect the wishes of creators. Harper Lee chose not to publish the earlier version of the novel that eventually became To Kill a Mockingbird, even though she could have made quite a bit on it. However, her sister chose to publish it very soon after her death. That aspect of the issue is pretty much a crap shoot. Sometimes, a family would preserve the integrity of the original work and the author's wishes, other times not.

Just to be super picky and finicky, Harper Lee was still alive when Go Set a Watchman was published, and is reported to have confirmed that she approved the publication of it. I'm so glad she did because I loved reading it.

That's not super picky; that's accurate. Thanks for the correction. I'm not sure if was misremembering or if the idea came from a defective source at the time the book came out. (Another good argument for checking internet sources thoroughly.) Actually, the book apparently came out after Lee's sister's death but shortly before her own. There was some controversy at the time, though, over whether or not Lee might have been taken advantage of. Since she was still alive at the time, though, that's not the same as the issue we're discussing.

[munboy]

I think the whole concept of anyone being able to pick up your characters and universe the day after you die is nothing short of truly horrifying.

I'm all for extended copyright.

I'm also of the opinion all fanfic should be licensed by the author. Just seeing whats going on with Potter fanfic is also totally horrifying.

Does that include Rowling's fanfic? 

[Bill Hiatt]

I think the whole concept of anyone being able to pick up your characters and universe the day after you die is nothing short of truly horrifying.

I'm all for extended copyright.

I'm also of the opinion all fanfic should be licensed by the author. Just seeing whats going on with Potter fanfic is also totally horrifying.

Any way you look at it, longer or shorter terms, it's still a crap shoot.

Many of us seem to be assuming that our heirs will be the ones making the decisions, but that may well not be the case. Given the modern tendency of publishers to try to nail down all rights for the whole copyright term, it's more likely the publisher would be calling the shots. The heirs will still get the income, but would they have creative control? Likely not. That means the publisher can do anything from taking books out of print to licensing someone else to continue writing under the dead author's name. Sometimes such works are said to be based on unfinished drafts or notes, sometimes not. But the publisher can really claim anything at that point. At least in the instances I can think of, the publishers tried to get a good writer to do the posthumous works, but there's no guarantee that that would always be the case, or that the original vision would always be maintained. The publisher can also sell the movie rights, and we all know what that can lead to.

(There are actually numerous examples of authors not maintaining their own original vision, but if they don't, at least it's their own fault.)

I'm not opposed to a reasonable after-death length of copyright. I think 95 years is overdoing it. I think retroactively extending terms is a dangerous precedent that could be used by corporate America in the future to hold on to works forever. Nothing except common sense now prevents Congress from extending the term to life plus 3,000 years to satisfy publishers who have "term of copyright" clauses. Unlikely, yes, but not impossible. I think it's more likely the effort will be made to extend the term every so often in gradual bumps.

Being a prawn, I doubt they'll be any legal struggle over my work. However, if I became a bestseller before I die, I'm not sure I want the hand of my last publisher resting on that book forever. It might actually have a better shot of staying alive once it transitioned to the public domain. 

[TimothyEllis]

Does that include Rowling's fanfic? 

My understanding is "it" was fanfic, which was authorized by the author. I'd like to say yes, but the author did authorize it, so done is done. But that's part of my point. If an author allows it, or their next of kin does, its official. Anything else isn't, and should be a copyright violation.

I'll add, my approach to fanfic is if its any good, the fanfic-author is invited to be a co-author, and so its made official. But the author or his estate has complete control over the publishing.

@Bill

I have no publisher experience,so cant really comment. But maybe this is something for contracts which needs addressing. Maybe on death, all contracts have to be renewed with the heir/estate, or lapse returning the rights to the estate. Publisher control beyond the author's death should be in contracts. Audio contracts are for a specific term, so Publisher contracts should be also.

[Bill Hiatt]

@Bill

I have no publisher experience,so cant really comment. But maybe this is something for contracts which needs addressing. Maybe on death, all contracts have to be renewed with the heir/estate, or lapse returning the rights to the estate. Publisher control beyond the author's death should be in contracts. Audio contracts are for a specific term, so Publisher contracts should be also.

That would probably have to be done by law, because I doubt publishers are spontaneously going to start adding clauses that void their own contracts at death.

Much depends on how savvy the heirs are. Even if contracts had to be renewed with the heirs, would they all necessarily know what to do about that? Of course, an author could train his or her heirs in how to respond to certain basic situations, but one never knows when one might die. For instance, I'm all out of family. My heirs are friends I grew up with, but by the time I actually die, their children may well end up inheriting. (They're specified in the will in the even that their parents predecease me.) A couple of them are readers, but none of them have any experience with the publishing industry. Of course, given my sales figures, it's all too likely that my works will essentially die with me, but if a lightning-strike movie option offer or publishing offer came up, none of them would have the background to deal with it. Yet it seems strange to try to brief people about what might happen twenty or thirty years from now.

All of that is a good argument for a literary executor, but it seems silly to require that when one is a prawn. Regardless of the copyright term or how it relates to heirs, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to deal with these issues unless one leaves all the intellectual property to another author. But unless that author is a close relative, that too seems weird.

[TimothyEllis]

All of that is a good argument for a literary executor, but it seems silly to require that when one is a prawn. Regardless of the copyright term or how it relates to heirs, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to deal with these issues unless one leaves all the intellectual property to another author. But unless that author is a close relative, that too seems weird.

Given the effort needed to get your books moved to a new KDP heir account, each author should now have a set of instructions appended to their will. Such instructions could include general instructions as to who to contact should such things as movie offers arise.

I was wondering if a will could also consign your books to the public domain if the author wished. Especially if there was no-one to leave them to who would care. Executor instructions could be left for this sort of thing. This can be done now. It just requires a copyright change, and setting the books to free. An author with foreknowledge of the end coming, could do this themselves, or direct someone to do it.

[Post-Crisis D]

I was wondering if a will could also consign your books to the public domain if the author wished.

I believe you can do that in some countries.  I don't know if Australia is one of them.

In the U.S., whether this is allowed is subject to debate.  I read up on it a couple years back and it seemed the conclusion was that there is no mechanism in U.S. copyright law to give up your copyright on a work and place it in the public domain prior to when the copyright would expire.  But, in more recent years, it seems some who said previously you cannot now say you can.  But, as far as I know, there haven't been any court cases to determine one way or the other.

Unless you're rich, probably the last thing you'd want to do is be that test case.  I could foresee a situation where a creator might issue a statement releasing his/her work into the public domain and then, after their death, the family/heirs are all like, um, no way, those rights are all belonging to us now! 

[guest1291]

I like the idea of extended copyright for individual authors, but not for corporations. I realize this would be next to impossible.

[munboy]

Does that include Rowling's fanfic? 

My understanding is "it" was fanfic, which was authorized by the author. I'd like to say yes, but the author did authorize it, so done is done. But that's part of my point. If an author allows it, or their next of kin does, its official. Anything else isn't, and should be a copyright violation.

I'll add, my approach to fanfic is if its any good, the fanfic-author is invited to be a co-author, and so its made official. But the author or his estate has complete control over the publishing.

I was being facetious because pretty much everything that's come out since Deathly Hallows has been crap and/or revisionist.

[Jake]

Life +95 is so absolutely absurd that I find it hard to believe that anyone could reasonable argue in its defense. It's not even something that the public wanted, it was lobbyist acting on behalf of big corporations. They actually wanted copyrights to last FOREVER.

[TimothyEllis]

In the U.S., whether this is allowed is subject to debate.  I read up on it a couple years back and it seemed the conclusion was that there is no mechanism in U.S. copyright law to give up your copyright on a work and place it in the public domain prior to when the copyright would expire.  But, in more recent years, it seems some who said previously you cannot now say you can.  But, as far as I know, there haven't been any court cases to determine one way or the other.

It's already been done.

The Amitabha Buddhist Society releases all it's books for free, and there is a specific copyright notice which allows anyone to copy and distribute the work. Unscrupulous people have taken copies, and put them on Kindle for sale. They dont actually care. All that matters to them is the books get read.

I can see the issue of heirs contesting wills which public domain the books, but I was thinking mainly about authors with no heirs making the public domain before they die, or instructing this in their will (which presumably gives all other assets to a charity.)
 

[David VanDyke]

Putting a long limitation on the copyright at least gives the family estate the chance to filter out the truly horrible money grabbers until at least a generation has passed.

A generation is generally reckoned at 30 years. Life+50 gives more than that, plenty.

Life+95 is 3+ generations. That's excessive, even by your own argument.

[TimothyEllis]

Life +95 is so absolutely absurd that I find it hard to believe that anyone could reasonable argue in its defense. It's not even something that the public wanted, it was lobbyist acting on behalf of big corporations. They actually wanted copyrights to last FOREVER.

Its an interesting thing.

In my book universe, 600+ years into the future, I touch upon this issue, where digital books still exist, and who owns them.

I think this is part of the issue. Potentially, books now could remain available for millennia. Copyright should allow books to stay in a family line pretty much for as long as the book continues to exist, and allow for updating as language changes in the future.

[Post-Crisis D]

You know, writers and other IP creators are basically the only people who have the ability to create something that will still bring in new money for their descendants after they die. A furniture builder can't make any more chairs or tables after he dies. An auto mechanic can't fix cars from beyond the grave. These people have to save up money they earned in life if they want to be able to pass it on to the next generation. What if said auto mechanic gets hit by a bus and killed? Better hope he had life insurance...

But someone who writes a book creates a thing that can still be sold and earn money long after they pass on, for people who didn't have anything to do with them being created or may not even have known the writer himself when he was alive. It just doesn't seem fair somehow.

The average hourly wage for an auto mechanic in the U.S. is currently around $19 per hour (based on a quick online search).  Let's round that to $20 for easy figuring.  The auto mechanic shows up to work five days a week, eight hours a day.  At the end of a week, he gets a check for $800 (well, less than that because of taxes and other fees).  (Or maybe he gets $1600 every two weeks if he gets paid every other week.)  But, he's got money in hand.

If an author works on his or her novel for forty hours a week, at the end of the week he or she gets a check for, um, nothing.  The following week, after another forty hours, he or she gets a check for, um, nothing.  And so on.  Unless the author has gotten an advance from a publisher, all that work being done is going unpaid.  Even once the book is finished and published doesn't even guarantee the author will end up making even minimum wage for their work.  They often have to work other jobs in order to make ends meet.

So, the furniture maker or the auto mechanic or whoever is making money and getting paid after putting in their hours of work.  That's money they have in hand at the end of the week or every other week.  That's money they can almost immediately use to buy food, pay bills and maybe even invest into savings for the future.

The author (or other artist) does not have that same luxury.  Those hours spent toiling away producing a creative work often do not pay off right away.  It might be years if they pay off, if ever.  So, how do you compensate those creative people?  You could say, oh well, tough luck if your stuff doesn't sell; you should have been an auto mechanic, and then discourage people from writing, painting and other creative endeavors.  Or you could recognize the risk they are taking by spending their time trying to produce creative works and look at the creative arts as an investment that may not pay dividends for many years.  So, yes, a longer copyright term is fine with me.  Ninety-five years after death isn't bad either considering how underpaid the typical creative person tends to be.  For every Stephen King, there are probably hundreds of other authors barely scraping by.

So, while it may not seem fair someone can profit from their work even after they are dead, those salaried and hourly wage workers getting paid on a regular basis get a more immediate benefit to their hard work and they have the freedom to invest some of that money into buying a house, setting aside money for their children or grandchildren's college expenses, and so on.  The author doesn't necessarily have that luxury.

So the longer copyright terms is like society saying we value creativity, we value the benefits creative works can provide and we recognize that creative works often do not generate an immediate income, but if you want to take the risk of producing creative works, if you want to spend hours and hours working on something that may never produce a good return on time investment in your lifetime, we're willing to help you a little bit by giving you and your family an extended number of years for it to pay off, so even if you don't benefit in your lifetime, even if you can't set aside money to invest to build something for your family, you will still have an opportunity to help your family financially long after you're gone.  Or, in some cases, where the author has no family, they can provide for charities or other beneficiaries they maybe couldn't afford to help as much as they could while alive.

Sure, some corporations may take advantage of that and it may lock up works for what some might consider to be "too long" but maybe that just means creative professionals need more training in contract negotiations and what their rights are and so on.  I mean, I had plenty of art classes and a creative writing class in school and none of them taught us anything about copyright law.  Especially in the creative writing class, which was an elective, there's a good chance people taking an elective course like that are interested in becoming writers so some instruction on copyright law and related contracts would be highly beneficial.  We learned writing techniques and even how to submit to publishers, but if you actually land a contract, good luck with that, you know?

But, anyway, I digress.  Plus, you know, creative people aren't always the best marketers.  If they were, they could maybe become millionaires with their first work or something.  LOL.  Sometimes we're slow learners.  So we need life plus another hundred years to figure it all out.

[Post-Crisis D]

It's already been done.

The Amitabha Buddhist Society releases all it's books for free, and there is a specific copyright notice which allows anyone to copy and distribute the work. Unscrupulous people have taken copies, and put them on Kindle for sale. They dont actually care. All that matters to them is the books get read.

But that's not actually putting the work in the public domain.  They are basically granting a free license to the use of their copyrighted material.

That's how open source and "copyleft" agreements came about.  Some software developers wanted to release their work freely, but since you can't just say "I release this into the public domain" (apparently) and be done with it, they have to come up with an agreement that works under copyright law to grant a license to use the copyrighted material freely.

[APP]

The average hourly wage for an auto mechanic in the U.S. is currently around $19 per hour (based on a quick online search).  Let's round that to $20 for easy figuring.  The auto mechanic shows up to work five days a week, eight hours a day.  At the end of a week, he gets a check for $800 (well, less than that because of taxes and other fees).  (Or maybe he gets $1600 every two weeks if he gets paid every other week.)  But, he's got money in hand.

If an author works on his or her novel for forty hours a week, at the end of the week he or she gets a check for, um, nothing.  The following week, after another forty hours, he or she gets a check for, um, nothing.  And so on.  Unless the author has gotten an advance from a publisher, all that work being done is going unpaid.  Even once the book is finished and published doesn't even guarantee the author will end up making even minimum wage for their work.  They often have to work other jobs in order to make ends meet.

So, the furniture maker or the auto mechanic or whoever is making money and getting paid after putting in their hours of work.  That's money they have in hand at the end of the week or every other week.  That's money they can almost immediately use to buy food, pay bills and maybe even invest into savings for the future.

The author (or other artist) does not have that same luxury.  Those hours spent toiling away producing a creative work often do not pay off right away.  It might be years if they pay off, if ever.  So, how do you compensate those creative people?  You could say, oh well, tough luck if your stuff doesn't sell; you should have been an auto mechanic, and then discourage people from writing, painting and other creative endeavors.  Or you could recognize the risk they are taking by spending their time trying to produce creative works and look at the creative arts as an investment that may not pay dividends for many years.  So, yes, a longer copyright term is fine with me.  Ninety-five years after death isn't bad either considering how underpaid the typical creative person tends to be.  For every Stephen King, there are probably hundreds of other authors barely scraping by.

So, while it may not seem fair someone can profit from their work even after they are dead, those salaried and hourly wage workers getting paid on a regular basis get a more immediate benefit to their hard work and they have the freedom to invest some of that money into buying a house, setting aside money for their children or grandchildren's college expenses, and so on.  The author doesn't necessarily have that luxury.

So the longer copyright terms is like society saying we value creativity, we value the benefits creative works can provide and we recognize that creative works often do not generate an immediate income, but if you want to take the risk of producing creative works, if you want to spend hours and hours working on something that may never produce a good return on time investment in your lifetime, we're willing to help you a little bit by giving you and your family an extended number of years for it to pay off, so even if you don't benefit in your lifetime, even if you can't set aside money to invest to build something for your family, you will still have an opportunity to help your family financially long after you're gone.  Or, in some cases, where the author has no family, they can provide for charities or other beneficiaries they maybe couldn't afford to help as much as they could while alive.

Sure, some corporations may take advantage of that and it may lock up works for what some might consider to be "too long" but maybe that just means creative professionals need more training in contract negotiations and what their rights are and so on.  I mean, I had plenty of art classes and a creative writing class in school and none of them taught us anything about copyright law.  Especially in the creative writing class, which was an elective, there's a good chance people taking an elective course like that are interested in becoming writers so some instruction on copyright law and related contracts would be highly beneficial.  We learned writing techniques and even how to submit to publishers, but if you actually land a contract, good luck with that, you know?

But, anyway, I digress.  Plus, you know, creative people aren't always the best marketers.  If they were, they could maybe become millionaires with their first work or something.  LOL.  Sometimes we're slow learners.  So we need life plus another hundred years to figure it all out.

Interesting analogy. I like it!

[Bill Hiatt]

Life +95 is so absolutely absurd that I find it hard to believe that anyone could reasonable argue in its defense. It's not even something that the public wanted, it was lobbyist acting on behalf of big corporations. They actually wanted copyrights to last FOREVER.

Its an interesting thing.

In my book universe, 600+ years into the future, I touch upon this issue, where digital books still exist, and who owns them.

I think this is part of the issue. Potentially, books now could remain available for millennia. Copyright should allow books to stay in a family line pretty much for as long as the book continues to exist, and allow for updating as language changes in the future.

Perpetual copyright?

We might all want that if a) the family, as opposed to the publisher, actually had control of the material; and b) the family had the same sensitivities as the author.

Both of those are long-shots. While I appreciate Dan's point about people needing more training in copyright and contract law, the reality is that the publishers still hold most of the cards in that particular game, and knowledge won't necessarily change that. As long as publishers have a supply of good authors sufficient to publish what they deem the optimal number of books in a given time period, authors have no way to force better terms on them. Author A insists on rights reverting to the family at a certain point, and the publisher says no deal and moves on to the next eager hopeful. Of course, self published authors don't have that issue, but my guess is the publishing industry will keep its grip on most of the bestselling authors. At the risk of pointing out the obvious, there aren't that many of us whose work will still be read 600 years from now, so holding eternal rights isn't likely to do our heirs any good.

As for the second point, an author might be confident that heirs he knows will respect his wishes, but the further removed from him the work becomes, the less likely it is that will remain the case. It's great to think about creating an extra income stream for one's grandchildren, and we might all want that. That doesn't mean our great-great grandchildren won't turn out to be asshats who sell our entire catalog to people who will turn it all into hardcore porn. People an author actually knows will be more likely to feel an obligation than people who live generations later and have no emotional connection.

As I've said, I have no objection to a reasonable copyright period following death. What worries me is the tendency for corporations to keep pushing for extensions.

(And curse this forum for having such interesting discussions. I'm finding myself spending too much time here!)

[idontknowyet]

You know, writers and other IP creators are basically the only people who have the ability to create something that will still bring in new money for their descendants after they die. A furniture builder can't make any more chairs or tables after he dies. An auto mechanic can't fix cars from beyond the grave. These people have to save up money they earned in life if they want to be able to pass it on to the next generation. What if said auto mechanic gets hit by a bus and killed? Better hope he had life insurance...

But someone who writes a book creates a thing that can still be sold and earn money long after they pass on, for people who didn't have anything to do with them being created or may not even have known the writer himself when he was alive. It just doesn't seem fair somehow.

The average hourly wage for an auto mechanic in the U.S. is currently around $19 per hour (based on a quick online search).  Let's round that to $20 for easy figuring.  The auto mechanic shows up to work five days a week, eight hours a day.  At the end of a week, he gets a check for $800 (well, less than that because of taxes and other fees).  (Or maybe he gets $1600 every two weeks if he gets paid every other week.)  But, he's got money in hand.

If an author works on his or her novel for forty hours a week, at the end of the week he or she gets a check for, um, nothing.  The following week, after another forty hours, he or she gets a check for, um, nothing.  And so on.  Unless the author has gotten an advance from a publisher, all that work being done is going unpaid.  Even once the book is finished and published doesn't even guarantee the author will end up making even minimum wage for their work.  They often have to work other jobs in order to make ends meet.

So, the furniture maker or the auto mechanic or whoever is making money and getting paid after putting in their hours of work.  That's money they have in hand at the end of the week or every other week.  That's money they can almost immediately use to buy food, pay bills and maybe even invest into savings for the future.

The author (or other artist) does not have that same luxury.  Those hours spent toiling away producing a creative work often do not pay off right away.  It might be years if they pay off, if ever.  So, how do you compensate those creative people?  You could say, oh well, tough luck if your stuff doesn't sell; you should have been an auto mechanic, and then discourage people from writing, painting and other creative endeavors.  Or you could recognize the risk they are taking by spending their time trying to produce creative works and look at the creative arts as an investment that may not pay dividends for many years.  So, yes, a longer copyright term is fine with me.  Ninety-five years after death isn't bad either considering how underpaid the typical creative person tends to be.  For every Stephen King, there are probably hundreds of other authors barely scraping by.

So, while it may not seem fair someone can profit from their work even after they are dead, those salaried and hourly wage workers getting paid on a regular basis get a more immediate benefit to their hard work and they have the freedom to invest some of that money into buying a house, setting aside money for their children or grandchildren's college expenses, and so on.  The author doesn't necessarily have that luxury.

So the longer copyright terms is like society saying we value creativity, we value the benefits creative works can provide and we recognize that creative works often do not generate an immediate income, but if you want to take the risk of producing creative works, if you want to spend hours and hours working on something that may never produce a good return on time investment in your lifetime, we're willing to help you a little bit by giving you and your family an extended number of years for it to pay off, so even if you don't benefit in your lifetime, even if you can't set aside money to invest to build something for your family, you will still have an opportunity to help your family financially long after you're gone.  Or, in some cases, where the author has no family, they can provide for charities or other beneficiaries they maybe couldn't afford to help as much as they could while alive.

Sure, some corporations may take advantage of that and it may lock up works for what some might consider to be "too long" but maybe that just means creative professionals need more training in contract negotiations and what their rights are and so on.  I mean, I had plenty of art classes and a creative writing class in school and none of them taught us anything about copyright law.  Especially in the creative writing class, which was an elective, there's a good chance people taking an elective course like that are interested in becoming writers so some instruction on copyright law and related contracts would be highly beneficial.  We learned writing techniques and even how to submit to publishers, but if you actually land a contract, good luck with that, you know?

But, anyway, I digress.  Plus, you know, creative people aren't always the best marketers.  If they were, they could maybe become millionaires with their first work or something.  LOL.  Sometimes we're slow learners.  So we need life plus another hundred years to figure it all out.

Is it sad I couldn't focus on the rest of what you were saying after $19 an hour for a mechanic around here in the US they charge 75-150 per hour in labor. GRRRRR

[TimothyEllis]

Perpetual copyright?

We might all want that if a) the family, as opposed to the publisher, actually had control of the material;

I wonder how much longer Publishers will actually be a big thing for?

Could it be in 50 years they more or less cease to exist? Everyone publishes like Indies do now, with full control of their IP?

Brave new world? I hope.

[Bill Hiatt]

Perpetual copyright?

We might all want that if a) the family, as opposed to the publisher, actually had control of the material;

I wonder how much longer Publishers will actually be a big thing for?

Could it be in 50 years they more or less cease to exist? Everyone publishes like Indies do now, with full control of their IP?

Brave new world? I hope.

I'd love to see publishers have less power, but I wouldn't count on it. Self publishing has proved it can make a living for a lot of people, but now conditions are getting worse. I don't know if that will continue or not, but it's certainly harder to hit big milestones than it was a few years ago. And publishers, though their market shares have dropped, especially in ebooks, still have a huge piece of the pie--and fewer authors to divide it among.

Even if the current system does fade away, I can see other undesirable alternatives, like the mass production system that's evolving, which might also result in everyone except a few authors at the top doing what amounts to work for hire. So the big cheeses control everything. A different problem, granted, but still a problem.

[TimothyEllis]

Be careful what you wish for.

The pharmaceutical companies are watching with interest.

Why?

[littleauthor]

95 years after death is a blip nowadays. People are living longer. My husband's grandmother is still alive at 105. My kids have given up a lot so their mother could write her books. I have grandsons now. I gave them a roll of quarters and a warning not to grow up like me for their birthdays this month.

If I ever do write a book that survives the ages and I fall down dead the next day (because I ignored my body slaving over the book) 95 years is what I bloody well want for my heirs to enjoy the fruit of my labour and sacrifice.

The world isn't the same as when I was young. Housing is expensive. Wages are stagnant. The economic divide is growing. My kids and grandkids will need all the help they can get. Old age costs more with seniors outliving their money. I'm not stupid. I see what's coming for my grandsons and if my copyright can help them raise their kids or pay for their parents old age--then by God, it shall.

Corporations are always going to do what corps do and they'll find a way to get around obstacles to get what they want. Thinking we'll curtail their avarice by shortening length of copyright is naive and leaves small fish at their mercy. If my heirs want to sell the copyright to a corp 95 years from now (or even before) I'll haunt them to demand a hefty price.

I didn't read the article, so I apologize if I'm ranting about something not germane to the discussion. Re: Narnia. C.S. Lewis donated a significant portion of his royalties from that series to charities. The Foundation does great public work. I wouldn't call it a corp by any stretch.

[Anarchist]

Be careful what you wish for.

The pharmaceutical companies are watching with interest.

Why?

Because.

[TimothyEllis]

Be careful what you wish for.

The pharmaceutical companies are watching with interest.

Why?

Because.

I don't see the relevance to books.

[Post-Crisis D]

Patents ≠ Copyrights

[okey dokey]

I've never been comfortable with our concept of "public domain"
The term should allow anyone to reproduce the original work.
But that should not open the door for someone to CREATE NEW stories using characters that I created.
If you want to create stories, then damn it create YOUR OWN characters.

[David VanDyke]

I've never been comfortable with our concept of "public domain"
The term should allow anyone to reproduce the original work.
But that should not open the door for someone to CREATE NEW stories using characters that I created.
If you want to create stories, then damn it create YOUR OWN characters.

And yet if that were absolute, there would be no public-domain Shakespeare, or even Homer, Virgil, Beowulf, etc.

There has to be an end to copyright.

To paraphrase Churchill, now we're merely talking numbers.

[Bill Hiatt]

I've never been comfortable with our concept of "public domain"
The term should allow anyone to reproduce the original work.
But that should not open the door for someone to CREATE NEW stories using characters that I created.
If you want to create stories, then damn it create YOUR OWN characters.

I think I'd be flattered if someone wanted to use my world almost a hundred years after my death. It's a moot point for most of us, of course. And yes, someone could use them in a way of which I would not approve. But you might take that risk if you ever went with a trad publisher, because you'd have to surrender some or all of your creative control. And you'd have to do the same if you sold movie rights. True, smart directors and screen writers are going to try to avoid alienating an existing fandom, so they may try to stick to your vision and/or involve you directly in the production. Warners Bros involved JK Rowling, and Spielberg often uses the author as one of the screenwriters, at least on the first movie of a franchise (like Crichton on Jurassic Park or Cline on Ready Player One) But that isn't always the case, and even if the author is involved, the author probably won't have final say. If I recall correctly, Anne Rice publicly denounced the casting choices for Interview with a Vampire, though after seeing the movie, she admitted she was wrong. And remember George Lucas's infamous comment that selling the Star Wars franchise to Disney had been like selling his children to white slavers. He apologized, but I'm tempted to think the statement reflected his sentiment. I don't know how the authors felt in cases in which fans were outraged by the movie, like Golden Compass and the first Percy Jackson movie. I do recall the author of Neverending Story denouncing the movie after it was done. Generally, authors don't make that kind of sentiment public. It's amazing we have as many examples as we do.

For that matter, though no one in this thread seems to think so, your own heirs could do something bizarre with your intellectual property. In most cases, they probably wouldn't, but unless you make all kinds of elaborate stipulations, they can really do whatever they want.

[RPatton]

I've never been comfortable with our concept of "public domain"
The term should allow anyone to reproduce the original work.
But that should not open the door for someone to CREATE NEW stories using characters that I created.
If you want to create stories, then damn it create YOUR OWN characters.

And yet if that were absolute, there would be no public-domain Shakespeare, or even Homer, Virgil, Beowulf, etc.

There has to be an end to copyright.

To paraphrase Churchill, now we're merely talking numbers.

Just to add to David's words...

Without Romeo and Juliet, we wouldn't have West Side Story.
Without La Boheme, we wouldn't have Rent.
Without creations falling into the public domain, we would have Nina Simone's amazing rendition of Sinnerman or Nirvana's version of In the Pines.

Everything is built on the shoulders of something else. Yes, reward those who came before, but not setting those works free stifles the very foundation of creativity. The Copyright Act of 1909 understood that. It strove to protect the creators without restricting the growth of creative endeavors. In 1976, that act was repealed and another one took its place. This one protected works for life plus 50 years.

It is to the advantage of the creator and more than fair. Anything past 50 years is just being greedy and ultimately selfish. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is created in a vacuum. If the cost of having access to adapt the amazing works that came before is to offer up my works in the future, I will gladly pay the price.

[okey dokey]

I THOUGHT I was clear.
I'm saying that if you want to CREATE the West Side Story, just don't use the characters Romeo and Juliet.
Create your own characters and  create your own story around them.
Which the West Side Story did very well.
If you are creative, you can do it. Don't be lazy. Create your own detective without using the crutch of Sherlock Holmes, who was created by a really creative writer.
I really thought I was clear.

[Bill Hiatt]

I THOUGHT I was clear.
I'm saying that if you want to CREATE the West Side Story, just don't use the characters Romeo and Juliet.
Create your own characters and  create your own story around them.
Which the West Side Story did very well.
If you are creative, you can do it. Don't be lazy. Create your own detective without using the crutch of Sherlock Holmes, who was created by a really creative writer.
I really thought I was clear.

West Side Story is based on the plot of Romeo and Juliet. Are you saying characters should be off-limits, but plot is fair game?

What about adapted versions of Romeo and Juliet? I wasn't a big fan of the Baz Luhrman version, but many of my students loved it, and one could argue that it made Shakespeare come alive for some people who wouldn't otherwise have been interested. R and J has attracted many other adaptations, including one set in Mussolini's Italy and one Portuguese one in which the two families are fans of rival soccer teams. Some of these had more going for them aesthetically than others, but on the whole, I think we're better off having them than not. Of course, in Shakespeare's time, scripts were much more fluid (no copyright), and Shakespeare himself never hesitated to rewrite plays by other authors for use by his company. Nor did he object to his work being adapted, even by actors on the fly (even though he does the criticize the practice a little in Hamlet).

A better example for our purposes would be the works of H.P. Lovecraft. The copyright situation on his works is a mess, but Arkham House, which claims to hold the rights, has been pretty liberal in licensing to authors to produce works set in Lovecraft's universe.  (Or else a lot of people are just ignoring copyright!) Either way, one of the reason Lovecraft as well as he is today is the continuous stream of new content, some of which is pretty good.

I'd be upset if an author's original work was completely supplanted by later adaptations, but that very seldom happens. For instance, despite the enormous popularity of the film version of the Wizard of Oz, all of L. Frank Baum's books are still in print. It's only likely to be the most popular authors whose works get reused much, anyway. And yes, some of the uses of that material will be inferior products, but others won't be. And many of those others will, instead of detracting from the original, help communicate it to later societies.

As I said before, if I had the choice, I'd want my works to live in, not just in their original forms, but in other versions. (Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.)

[She-la-te-da]

Plot is fair game. So are ideas.

I'm with David, I think extended copyright is crazy. Life plus 95 years? There won't be any heirs around to benefit from my copyrights. Unless something happens, I will never have grandchildren from my bloodline. So, when I die (and I figure I can live at least as long as my father, who passed at 88, giving me 27 more years), another 25 years is probably plenty. By the time I'm 88, my oldest will be 68. Another twenty years after that, he'll probably be gone, leaving his brothers aged and without heirs as well. Even if my youngest had a child, that child would be in his/her fifties.

Not that any of this matters to us. It's all the corporations (like Disney) who want to own everything forever. Pharmaceutical companies would like their patents to never run out, too. Wouldn't that line their pockets nicely?

[Bill Hiatt]

Plot is fair game. So are ideas.

I'm with David, I think extended copyright is crazy. Life plus 95 years? There won't be any heirs around to benefit from my copyrights. Unless something happens, I will never have grandchildren from my bloodline. So, when I die (and I figure I can live at least as long as my father, who passed at 88, giving me 27 more years), another 25 years is probably plenty. By the time I'm 88, my oldest will be 68. Another twenty years after that, he'll probably be gone, leaving his brothers aged and without heirs as well. Even if my youngest had a child, that child would be in his/her fifties.

Not that any of this matters to us. It's all the corporations (like Disney) who want to own everything forever. Pharmaceutical companies would like their patents to never run out, too. Wouldn't that line their pockets nicely?

Judging from this thread, it's not just big corporations who want extended copyright. The difference is that it's the big corporations who have the clout to actually get it.

[TimothyEllis]

From what's being said, I think there are 2 main possibilities in the future.

1. Authors will pass their books down a family line, or pass them on to someone, and they will continue forever.

2. Books will become public domain on their own as authors die without heirs or without transferring them to someone else. Or as they cease copyright by their own intent.

So long copyrights will effectively help those authors who do have a family who continue to want to control the books, and the laws should also reflect books will keep falling into public domain either by intent or because no-one continues to maintain the copyright.

Or put it another way, copyright law should cover both a family line wanting to keep control forever, and such a line ceasing.

With the digital medium, it should be easy to differentiate. As long as a book is still being sold, it should retain copyright. Once the author is dead, if the book goes out free, or ceases to be available for say a year, then copyright lapses.

The idea here is allow books not being controlled to pass into the public domain, while allowing the control to continue as long as it can.

[Bill Hiatt]

From what's being said, I think there are 2 main possibilities in the future.

1. Authors will pass their books down a family line, or pass them on to someone, and they will continue forever.

2. Books will become public domain on their own as authors die without heirs or without transferring them to someone else. Or as they cease copyright by their own intent.

So long copyrights will effectively help those authors who do have a family who continue to want to control the books, and the laws should also reflect books will keep falling into public domain either by intent or because no-one continues to maintain the copyright.

Or put it another way, copyright law should cover both a family line wanting to keep control forever, and such a line ceasing.

With the digital medium, it should be easy to differentiate. As long as a book is still being sold, it should retain copyright. Once the author is dead, if the book goes out free, or ceases to be available for say a year, then copyright lapses.

The idea here is allow books not being controlled to pass into the public domain, while allowing the control to continue as long as it can.

That's an interesting proposal.

Among other things, it would solve the problem of orphaned works, which was one of my concerns. At the same time, it would address the concerns of others who want their families to benefit as long as possible.

Now, if only we were the government of the United States...

[idontknowyet]

95 years after death is a blip nowadays. People are living longer. My husband's grandmother is still alive at 105. My kids have given up a lot so their mother could write her books. I have grandsons now. I gave them a roll of quarters and a warning not to grow up like me for their birthdays this month.

If I ever do write a book that survives the ages and I fall down dead the next day (because I ignored my body slaving over the book) 95 years is what I bloody well want for my heirs to enjoy the fruit of my labour and sacrifice.

The world isn't the same as when I was young. Housing is expensive. Wages are stagnant. The economic divide is growing. My kids and grandkids will need all the help they can get. Old age costs more with seniors outliving their money. I'm not stupid. I see what's coming for my grandsons and if my copyright can help them raise their kids or pay for their parents old age--then by God, it shall.

Corporations are always going to do what corps do and they'll find a way to get around obstacles to get what they want. Thinking we'll curtail their avarice by shortening length of copyright is naive and leaves small fish at their mercy.

I agree with this.

[David VanDyke]

I think people are conflating lengthening copyright with strengthening copyright. They aren't the same thing.

The current copyright laws could use strengthening for the little guy. We can see how hard it is to defend works against plagiarism, pirating and other misuse. It should be easier. It shouldn't take tens of thousands of dollars to defend your own works.

Merely lengthening copyright to potentially 150 years or more (life+95) favors not the little guy, but the corporations, because it's mostly corporations that will be able to defend these works for generation after generation, for the express purpose of corporate economic gain.

Occasionally, works remain within a family or an estate, such as the Conan Doyle estate or the Agatha Christie estate. More often, however, the works are sold off for relative pittances, increasing the IP values of publishing corporations--rather like The Other Place was sold off to a faceless uncaring corporation whose only goal is to monetize content. Not that I'm against monetizing content per se--but let's be honest with ourselves: merely lengthening copyright, without improving the laws in favor of the actual creators, is a net negative for both society, and the works themselves, and for the creators.

[Bill Hiatt]

I think people are conflating lengthening copyright with strengthening copyright. They aren't the same thing.

The current copyright laws could use strengthening for the little guy. We can see how hard it is to defend works against plagiarism, pirating and other misuse. It should be easier. It shouldn't take tens of thousands of dollars to defend your own works.

Merely lengthening copyright to potentially 150 years or more (life+95) favors not the little guy, but the corporations, because it's mostly corporations that will be able to defend these works for generation after generation, for the express purpose of corporate economic gain.

Occasionally, works remain within a family or an estate, such as the Conan Doyle estate or the Agatha Christie estate. More often, however, the works are sold off for relative pittances, increasing the IP values of publishing corporations--rather like The Other Place was sold off to a faceless uncaring corporation whose only goal is to monetize content. Not that I'm against monetizing content per se--but let's be honest with ourselves: merely lengthening copyright, without improving the laws in favor of the actual creators, is a net negative for both society, and the works themselves, and for the creators.

It seems to me most of the argument has focused on whether or not the copyright term should be lengthened.

In any case, you do make a good point about heirs being taken advantage of. An author's heir isn't necessarily going to be knowledgeable about publishing. The exceptions you cite are both people whose literary efforts had been exceedingly successful during their lifetimes and who no doubt had literary executors. The problem for many indie authors is whether the expense of a literary executor would be worth it. Unless the books involved have become enduring classics, royalties are likely to fall off considerably once there are no new books coming out, no advertising, etc.

Training one's heirs might be a good idea, but what we tell them about self publishing today will be outdated in a few years.

[GP Hudson]

Putting a long limitation on the copyright at least gives the family estate the chance to filter out the truly horrible money grabbers until at least a generation has passed.

A generation is generally reckoned at 30 years. Life+50 gives more than that, plenty.

Life+95 is 3+ generations. That's excessive, even by your own argument.

I couldn't disagree more. I would like to see Life+200 if not more.

I know someone whose family is living off the work of his great grandfather. The great grandfather built a hugely successful business and the family has been reaping the rewards for generations, and will continue to do so for generations to come.

So, why is it ok for the founder of a corporation to provide this wealth for his heirs, but not for a writer? What gives anyone, other than the writer, the right to impose limits on how long a writer's estate can benefit from his/her work?

[Bill Hiatt]

Putting a long limitation on the copyright at least gives the family estate the chance to filter out the truly horrible money grabbers until at least a generation has passed.

A generation is generally reckoned at 30 years. Life+50 gives more than that, plenty.

Life+95 is 3+ generations. That's excessive, even by your own argument.

I couldn't disagree more. I would like to see Life+200 if not more.

I know someone whose family is living off the work of his great grandfather. The great grandfather built a hugely successful business and the family has been reaping the rewards for generations, and will continue to do so for generations to come.

So, why is it ok for the founder of a corporation to provide this wealth for his heirs, but not for a writer? What gives anyone, other than the writer, the right to impose limits on how long a writer's estate can benefit from his/her work?

This is not a good analogy. Corporations have limited copyright terms as well. The corporation that's still making money is doing it on the basis of ongoing commercial activity, not old copyrights.

We all want financial security for our families. But we have a lot more options when we're alive than we do once we're dead. That's just the way it works. Some corporations may produce income for generations. Others get run into the ground by heirs or subsequent owners who don't know what they're doing. The same thing could easily be true of a literary legacy. Will an heir five generations removed from you know how to distribute your books, market them, etc.? If I were an heir to a literary estate, I would try to keep it going. But, more importantly, I would invest as much as I could while the copyright was still in effect. In that way, the original copyright could still benefit the family for generation through income on the investments.

We also tend to forget the value society derives from the public domain. For example, see https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2006/11/8292/, though it's not specific to literature. As I mentioned earlier, some works have vanished completely because they didn't reach public domain fast enough to be preserved. Other related reading: https://www.publicknowledge.org/pdf/why_the_public_domain_matters.pdf and https://rufuspollock.com/papers/value_of_public_domain.ippr.pdf

For most of us, the issue will be moot. With thousands of books being published every day, only the works of highest level bestsellers are likely to survive, even with savvy heirs. Sure, ebooks enable a book to stay in print forever, but Amazon's servers are already cluttered with books that sell few or no copies now. It's hard to imagine many works a century or two old (aside from classics) remaining visible in the great heap. I'd be thrilled if my works still were, but it's astronomically unlikely. If anything, works becoming public domain, because it makes them more accessible, might actually improve their chances of survival, even though our descendants won't be the ones profiting from them.