On 07/12/09 18:08, Darren New wrote:
> Neeum Zawan wrote:
>> To get to my point, when the copyright period is too long, then the
>> incentive to promote the arts is greatly reduced. If you have lifetime
>> copyright, then the person who produced a piece of art has a lot less
>> incentive to produce more pieces of art.
>
> I think you might be ignoring the part where copyright pays for the work
> you already did.
>
> Consider a computer program like Windows, or a mainstream movie, that
> requires hundreds of people working for years to write. One of the uses
> of copyright is to recover that money, because nobody would pay the full
> cost for the first copy.

	Well, which is why I'm not advocating eradicating copyright, but merely 
limiting it. How many movies or pieces of software do you know of that 
took over 20 years to produce a profit?

	I guess I'm missing the point you were making.

>> Take Star Trek. It almost disappeared. The series were all dead, and
>> no movie had been made for what, 8 years?
>
> I don't think 8 years is a long time.

	In an absolute sense, no. But given the usual cycle for Star Trek 
movies, and given the end of all the series, it was worrisome.

	Not saying copyright should be that short - just pointing out the real 
concern that Star Trek would die, and copyright would prevent it from 
being resurrected.

>> In other words, the burden is on you to explain why they should be
>> allowed to benefit from it. Specifically, why do you even think there
>> should be copyright?
>
> So that one piece of information that costs a great deal to be developed
> can have the cost of developing it recovered by spreading that cost
> amongst many buyers.

	Yes, but that's a short term reason. The bigger and main reason is to 
benefit society and further the discipline.

	Put another way, what you say makes sense for products like software 
that has lots of utility. But movies? There's no obvious reason that 
society needs movies. However, society does like them and provides a 
means (copyright) for making such movies in a practical manner.

	I'm all cool with that. I just can't go from there to 80+ years of 
copyright. If ever someone wanted to create something that society would 
benefit from that *would* take that long to recover the costs, then I 
wouldn't oppose it.

> Now, once your cost is recovered, along with a reasonable profit
> (including a reasonable "interest-like" profit for risking the
> development in the first place), it would make sense to terminate that
 > specific copyright.

	No arguments there.

> specific copyright. But it's hard to codify how much money you can make
> from an idea, so a limited period in which to regain your profits seems
> to be an OK alternative. Altho a "as long as you can make money on it"
> seems OK to me too, as long as you *do* make money on it. Having it
> available continuously for sale would seem like it would satisfy the
> enrichment of culture to me.

	I could probably settle for "as long as you make money on it".

	Actually, I take that back. I could settle for "as long as the product 
remains available and people benefit from it". The money thing will 
follow. I could also settle for "whichever comes last". If they haven't 
made enough out of it in 20 years, but are still selling it, then extend 
it until they stop. If they make heaps of it in the first 5 years, then 
they stop selling, I'd still give them the extra 15 years, but no more.

	However, if we'll have that, we need to codify a sane criterion for 
what constitutes the amount of money or "product remaining available for 
society". It'd be different for a piece of software compared to a movie. 
That may be quite challenging.

-- 
Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright 
ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little 
sign of breaking down in the near future.

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