[gwd]

I get the idea, but I think that's way too short. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone came out in 1997; imagine if instead of paying Rowling for the royalties to make the movie in 2001, the studios had just waited until 2017 and done it without her permission, paying her not a penny.

[majewsky]

They most likely still would have done it. Books like this usually have a short shelf life in the public consciousness. Harry Potter being an exception to the rule is in large part based on the hugely successful long-running movie series.

[PoignardAzur]

"Wait 16 years to make a movie for a franchise that's popular with children now" is a bold proposition.

[PurpleRamen]

That's actually very common in Hollywood. Wait if a work survives the test of time. And then reap on the now money-loaded customers and cash out from their reminiscence.

[zie]

Except you forgot about competition within the movie making industry. They could very easily end up competing against each other by making 2 or 3 movies of the same thing, which lowers their overall return, and is a bad deal for everyone.

I think it just depends on the pricing the copyright holder wants. If you can pay a few bucks and get exclusive rights, it's totally a win. If you have to mortgage your business to get the rights, it's a much harder decision.

I think a reasonable compromise would be, by default a copyright lasts 10 years, but they can extend it another 10 or 20 years(or maybe even until their death), if they pay a fee of some sort, perhaps yearly, so the copyright will expire as soon as it doesn't make sense to pay the fee anymore.

This lets the long-term copyright winners continue to win for most of their lifetime, if they cut the people(the govt) in on some of that return. While most things that don't need long term copyright get dumped into public domain to help invigorate and make more awesome new ideas.

[PurpleRamen]

> They could very easily end up competing against each other by making 2 or 3 movies of the same thing, which lowers their overall return, and is a bad deal for everyone.

Public domain is not new. They already have this situation now, and usually avoid this, probably for exact this reason.

> This lets the long-term copyright winners continue to win for most of their lifetime

Seems not very reasonable to support the rich and paywall the poor.

[zie]

I agree public domain is not new, and they do have this problem today. It's generally 1st mover advantage that wins and the rest give up the project, since they know they probably can't beat them to market and get good market share. That's not always the case though.

If you are poor, then there is zero reason to renew the copyright, you clearly aren't making any money off of it. I view it as a tax on the copyright, it could even be implemented that way, say 10% of your take rate or something.

[galangalalgol]

Hollywood is already rebooting reboots of remakes of comic books vaguely based on historic events. Imagine if original copyright rules in the us applied (14 extensible by 14 for a living author). They could reboot anything before 1995 for free.

[PurpleRamen]

They already do that now, even for less stuff from less than 20, 30 years. They reboot, remake, continue anything for whatever reason. Money is relevant, but by far not the biggest hurdle to prevent them. The permissions of the right holders and the influence of the creators are more important IMHO.

For example, Netflix just now announced a reboot of One Piece Anime, a series running for 25 years. The creator is still working on the original source. Imagine if Netflix could just do that on their own, the creator had no influence at all on their work. They could just make shit along the way as they see it. Twist it, change it, with their power, they could be damaging the original work for good, simply because they are bigger.

[phantom784]

Perhaps trademark law could help? E.g. Netflix can make their One Piece reboot without permission, but it has to be named in a way that makes it clear it's not licensed from the original creator.

[freejazz]

Trademark doesn't protect individual works, it protects a brand.

[abecedarius]

U.S. law around the early 19th century would be a pretty decent compromise. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law_of_th... or the 1790 version. Either way, there's a moderate term renewable once if you go to the trouble.

[PurpleRamen]

The Idea is even worse. It's not uncommon for artists to work a long time for next to nothing, until someday they have a big breakthrough. 10, 20 years are nothing. And while newer works are usually then one bringing a breakthrough, making good money with early works is also happening often. Usually, artist grow in their own little niche, until they hit mainstream.