Sir - have you any opinions on the current Berne Convention copyright length?
It’s too long. 70 years after death feels wrong. I’m good with 50 years, though.
It should be zero. What good is extended copyright after death of the creator in the 21st century? The right to be asserted as the creator of a work should be separated from the economical value from that point. All it’s doing now is filling the pockets of greedy companies.
And it’s also feeding loved ones and children after the death of the person who made the art has died.
Here’s a blog I wrote long ago about creators having wills. And a sample will. http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2006/10/important-and-pass-it-on.html?m=1
I like the idea of feeding Ash (he’s four and not yet able to work) with my stories after I’m dead. I’m not good with feeding my great grandchildren.
As an author, I don’t agree with this argument at all. Why should your past works support your family anymore than anyone else’s?
A man who works his body day in and day out and pays his taxes every year to support his family gets nothing when he dies. Most he gets is an insurance plan out of pocket.
Why should I get that sort of luxury? How am I better than the working man? How am I better than someone who worked dozens of times harder than me?
Even then, how are you sure the money is actually going to your estate? How would you make sure your family continues your legacy through hardwork, and not through old money?
It’s something I don’t exactly agree with. I think there are more ways to support your family after you’re gone, and I don’t know if extension of copyright is it.
So you’re arguing for a world in which no property of any kind, physical or intellectual lasts longer than the death of the person who bought it or made it? In which houses, stocks, comic book collections, all become part of the commonweal? Because right now, you can leave your property to your children or your loved ones. Touchable property and intellectual property. You can leave them money, too.
Anthony Burgess (who wrote, among other things, A Clockwork Orange) was told (wrongly) he had months to live. He wanted to support his family after he was gone, so he wrote books, fast and well.
He was lucky. It was a misdiagnosis and he didn’t die.
But I’m on the side of Anthony Burgess in this. I’m glad that Douglas Adams’ books took care of his daughter Polly when she was a small child whose father had just died, and more so when, a decade later, her mother died as well.
I’m a writer. What I do is write. I have adult children who are taking care of themselves, and a four year old who can’t. I’m in a couple of Covid risk groups, and could in theory be dead in a couple of weeks. (I hope I’m not.) PWhile there are “more ways to support your family after you’ve gone” that aren’t based around things I’ve made up and written down, I didn’t actually want to stop writing and making things up in order to do them.
I think the current copyright laws (death plus 70 for individuals, 90 years after creation for corporate things) are too long. But I don’t think you should lose your property, physical or intellectual, when you die.