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My own perception of fair would be that copyright expires 25 years after creation, or 20 years after publication, whichever comes first. If any of the creators are alive at that time and still own the copyright, they may extend by 10 years if no other creator objects. If you create a copyrightable work and die the next day, and your executor manages to get it published the next year, your estate owns the copyrights for the next 20. That is enough time for any child sired by a male author on the day he died to be supported by his estate until it becomes an adult. It also provides a reasonable 5 year window to get something published before later publication is punished by a shortened copyright term. Still-living creators will, of course, be able to deny that a work was actually finished--and therefore started the 25-year clock--until just before the day the first copy is made available for sale--which starts the 20-year clock--so that would pretty much just be enforceable on posthumous publications and on bizarre edicts from eccentric or reclusive creators who try to exert too much control over how other people may enjoy their work. And it allows for a work still profitable after 20 years to squeeze a little more out. I think the extension may encourage corporations that commission works for hire to support their successful creators for 20 years so that they will not object to the extension. Works-for-hire, by the way, would have all the individual humans and the corporation as the creators, and the default would be tenancy-in-common, with the humans temporarily assigning their interest to the corporation in exchange for a regular salary. (I think the current works-for-hire system encourages immortal corporations to use up and throw away their human talent.) So if the corporation stops making the payments, the creators regain their full interest in the work, according to the size of their contribution defined by the work-for-hire agreement, if one exists, or an equal share if not. So the only reason to fire a creator would be if the profits from the works they create aren't sufficient to pay their salary, at which time they get their (lesser) share of the profits instead. A session musician, for instance, might be hired by a record label to get a 4% share of every recorded music track, and assign that interest to the company in exchange for salary of $1200 every week working in the home studio and $1800 every week spent touring. If the tracks that musician played on bring in more than $2.34M, the company should keep them as salaried employees indefinitely. Otherwise, they could fire them as an employee and just pay out their 4% until the copyright term runs out. |