"Neeum Zawan" <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote in message
news:4a5a1070$1@news.povray.org...

> The more I think about it, the more I feel that excessive copyright is
> worse for society. What's excessive? Say over 20 years. I don't think
> the government should protect an entity that allows someone to produce a
> major piece of work once and live his whole life off of it because the
> copyright extends beyond his life. I think it invalidates the whole
> benefit to society that copyright is supposed to bring. 20 years should
> be sufficient, really.+++
>
> Having the children continue to profit off of it for a long time sounds
> even worse.

Why? What's the difference between someone toiling for decades to build a
house and leaving it for their kids to benefit by renting it, and someone
toiling for decades to build art and leaving it for their kids to benefit by
licensing it? I would suggest that copyright should be perpetual, rather
than an arbitrary number of years. Worth diminishes naturally anyway, be it
of material or immaterial things, but that should come naturally, not
through decree that the commercial worth of an artist's life work becomes
zero at his deathbed, or after an arbitrary number of years since creation.

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