Sure they are. Plenty of film and streaming projects are based on older work. Sapkowski's Witcher series comes to mind. If his rights to the IP had expired after 20 years then not only would Netflix been able to rip his work off for free, but he wouldn't have benefitted at all from the resurgence in popularity that his novels garnered. It would've just been gravy for some publishing company -- how would that be fair?
I do think that the current copyright regime is too long. I guess I'd like to see something like ~25 years from publication for human authors, but easily/cheaply renewable to lifetime copyright; and 25 years from creation for copyright held by companies, or for works for which the copyright has been assigned to someone else other than the original author, with no renewal.
> If his rights to the IP had expired after 20 years then not only would Netflix been able to rip his work off for free, but he wouldn't have benefitted at all from the resurgence in popularity that his novels garnered. It would've just been gravy for some publishing company -- how would that be fair?
Presumably in the same way that if you sell the mineral rights on a plot of land to someone else, and then they find oil or rubies there, it's thought of as fair that they get the money from that and you don't.
Or how if you sell someone a stock, and it goes up, they get the money from the appreciation and you don't.
Or how if your neighbor finds buried treasure on his land, and you find none on yours, he gets a big finder's fee and you don't get anything. (Indeed, in this case, there are commonly accusations of unfairness, but those tend to focus on the treatment of the neighbor being unfair. You deserved the nothing that you got.)
What's a scenario where this kind of event wouldn't be called fair?
You seem to have missed what I said. I didn't say nobody gets money 25 years down the line, I said people don't write because of the profits they might get 25 years down the line.
Yes, Netflix might've been able to make The Witcher without paying him, and also random Youtubers, complete nobodies, would've been able to make derivative works as well. That's the whole point of expiring copyright.
Does that favor big corporations? Well, it also means anybody and everybody can make Mickey Mouse content, or use the popular Marvel and DC characters, etc. Do you think Disney is a fan of that idea?
So while corporations would take advantage of it, so would random people, including indie artists.
I still have to disagree on both counts. First of all, plenty of writers write with at least the hope that their work will continue to generate residual income for the rest of their lives.
Second, no, even with the expiring copyright on Disney's earliest works, people can't just go out and make their own Mickey Mouse content, because there is trademark protection on Mickey Mouse and other major Disney IP, and that can be renewed indefinitely.[0] So even a quickly expiring copyright regime would still favor the deep-pocketed large corporations.
And you might say, well, the little author can trademark their work as well. But most won't. So all Disney and Warner would have to do is sit on the sidelines, trawl through the 25 year old fantasy section for interesting stories and characters that have not been trademarked, and just start use NG them without compensation. And what's worse, by introducing minimal changes to the characters (“Frobo Daggins“) they can then copyright and trademark their derivative works such that even the original author could not turn around and try to benefit from the resurgent popularity of their creation.
Not expecting to change your mind or anything, but I hope I have communicated my misgivings.
Yes, but people who wrote commercially successful books 25 years ago will scream blue murder if you take what they see as their retirement nest egg away from them.
I have to disagree somewhat. People write books for a lot of reasons, but one alluring thought in many an author's head certainly is: "Sure, it might not be commercially viable directly now, but over time…"
Writing books can be a pretty risky proposition from a financial point of view. Copyright should at least span an authors lifetime in my opinion.
Thinking that an author could profit not at all from a work if it gains popularity 20 years after it was written also seems unfair, seldom though as that case may be.
> Writing books can be a pretty risky proposition from a financial point of view. Copyright should at least span an authors lifetime in my opinion.
Why is it accepted that patents can last only 20 years then? Like, do you think creating new inventions is easy? Why for one and not the other?
But the bigger thing is that books making significant amounts of money after twenty years is an extreme exception. That's not the motivating thing. It's a "maybe that'd be nice" on top of the desire for revenue in the immediate future, in the first few years of the book coming out.
The proportion of books that make money 20 years after publication, after languishing in obscurity for that time, is a rounding error.
Like, how many such books can you actually name?
I think it’s a little different for music, where people sometimes sample fairly obscure old songs and turn them into hits. But then, a lot of those old songs shamelessly ripped off even older works…
I do think that the current copyright regime is too long. I guess I'd like to see something like ~25 years from publication for human authors, but easily/cheaply renewable to lifetime copyright; and 25 years from creation for copyright held by companies, or for works for which the copyright has been assigned to someone else other than the original author, with no renewal.