Copyright is not the same as trademarks. Disney can keep people from using mickey mouse without life + infinity which seems to be the current system. Movie adaptions for example could be prevented even if the book is in the public domain.
7 years seems short, but revenue capture must balance with the cost to society of copyright. Thus, ~80% of the revenue for 200x the freedom is a viable trade off.
PS: Remember the constitution explicitly says it's to promote the creation of new content NOT extract money from existing content. Having an author extract residuals for 50 years discourages new works.
I think this would be more compelling if you demonstrate that 7 years is long enough to generate 80% of the revenue. For many artistic works, it can take years to produce them (writing a book for instance), and many don't gain traction for years either. Film adaptations of books are a great example.
A real-life example: The Notebook (the book) was published in 1996. The Notebook (the movie) was released eight years later, in 2004. With a seven year copyright, the book would be in public domain, and the author may not see a dime from the movie. Is that fair? Is paying the author of the book royalties from the film's revenue a burdensome cost to society? I assert that the author of the book should be able to earn money from the wildly successful film adaptation of his movie, whether he's directly involved with the production of the film or not.
I'm sure there are a lot of subtle technicalities I'm missing, but I think the core of this argument stands.
I'm in favor of reducing the duration of copyright, but I think something in the region of 30 years is a more reasonable amount of time than 7 years.
Regarding the constitution, I think that the means of promoting creation of new works is the ability for creators to profit off of their works. By reducing the potential for profit, you reduce the incentive to create. I can see how overly-restrictive copyright law can inhibit creativity, but I think a 7 year period swings too far in the opposite direction.
I just said: Copyright is not the same as trademarks... Movie adaptions for example could be prevented even if the book is in the public domain.
Further, some authors make their first book free on Amazon in electronic format in what amounts to advertising for their second book. As long as an author can 'make a living' being an author you need to demonstrate the need for additional revenue when they are not writing.
Only a tiny fraction of Music, TV shows, Books and movies get revenue over a very long time period.
I'm not 100% educated on the law, but my assumption is that the name of the book is trademarked, but not the story itself. My apologies if that is incorrect.
It's also my understanding that book titles are not protected under trademark law, except for the title of a series, so The Lord of The Rings could be trademarked, but not The Notebook.
Edit: I think the point is the law needs to be changed anyway, so there are options in how you shape a new system.
Anyway, characters can also be trademarked, so you could have a magic school in a movie that's not named Hogwarts and a little boy not named Potter etc. So, you can have similar stories using different charters, but your forced to produce an original work and not use or imply 'based on X'.
There are also rules that let you use others trademarks. So, you don't need to pay using a ford car in a movie, or having an older song on the radio.
We could also have a longer copyright that caps to 7 years after first sale or public performance.
My point is simply there is a lot more flexibility than total control forever, that still preserves artistic control in their lifetimes.
At the same time, why do you feel you deserve to use someone else's characters? Why do you feel you deserve to use Mickey Mouse? Why not come up with your own character?
I don't nessisarily want people to be able to use Mickey Mouse, I want to force companies to stop milking old content. Why innovate when stagnation brings a steady paycheck from old Beatles songs etc.
No one is stopping you from innovating. If Disney wishes to sit on their laurels with Mickey Mouse, that's their problem. If people don't like it, they'll go to other things.
I will, however, point out that they are very much not doing that.
Now, my sister actually makes moves at Disney so I am well aware they do make new content. But, their model is very much based on milking old content and then waiting for new content to be fond childhood movies.
Snow white is from 1937 so they put out Maleficent which was somewhat original. But they also just remade Beauty and the Beast from 1991.
Good grief, there are pieces of art that take longer than 7 years just to create. How the fuck is anyone creative supposed to make a living in your BRave New world? Not everyone wants to pander to the lowest common denominator of popular taste.
You're right. That's why we have infinite copyrights now and that works great for making sure the rich stay rich and the poor starving artists stay poor.
I generally agree. But I do have some doubts as to how copyleft licensing would work without copyright protection. We can't enforce free licensing of contributions to GPL works, for example, without having the copyright in the first place.
I don't think it is ideal to protect copyrights for such a lengthy term. But simply reducing copyright terms to a shorter one, like 7 years, could be problematic -- unless we simultaneously enact a new legal obligation to make software works derived from free software available to the public under similarly free terms.
Not the OP but will a company wait 7 years so they can use some (F)OSS without providing their source modifications?
Seems unlikely, but if they do and those modifications are super-helpful then at most you'd have to wait 7 years to use reverse-engineered versions (disregarding patents), more likely you could reverse-engineer the mods and write technical equivalents using fresh code (ie clean-room re-writes).