[altmanaltman]

But this must then follow for all forms of works, why just books? Every company whose original creator dies must be converted into a public company within 20 years of founder's death for the public benefit as well if that's the case.

If I wrote it, I own the copyright on it, why should I or my future family give away something I worked really hard for? Why do only authors must care about public benefits?

[tancop]

> Every company whose original creator dies must be converted into a public company within 20 years of founder's death

if public company means employee owned (instead of publicly traded or state owned) then im all for it. if the founders family are good managers they can easily convince their workers to let them keep running things.

you dont deserve a job or a fortune just because your parents did a lot of hard work before you were an adult. you got to prove yourself and be better than the rest, thats what capitalism is all about right?

[altmanaltman]

What do you mean that's what capitalism is about? It's about capital. It doesn't asks where you get that capital - if you have $100,000 that you inherited vrs $100,000 you earned, JPM will still see it as just $100,000. So yes, by capitalism, if your parents did a lot of hard work and saved the capital and gave it to you, you have it. Where does it make a moral judgement that it's wrong to have inheritance or right to earn it by the bootstraps?

And no, I mean every trade secret of the company should become public and anyone should be able to create its products and brands. Basically, do to them what you propose to do to writers and artists - why must their families benefit from their work?

[constantius]

To your second point: a company (or any kind of organisation) is continuous work. It's a very obvious retort to your analogy. It would be akin to the author writing a book in a series every year for twenty years, then giving their rights to their child who keeps writing books every year, and every book only has 20 years of copyright. Seems fair to me.

To your first point: inheritance has a concentrating effect on wealth. Concentration of wealth is not a good thing, as it breeds inequality by definition.

If your grandparents gave you a house for free, and you used that enormous advantage to pur your money elsewhere and then own 2, 3 houses, and your child then gets 10, that's 10 houses that people could own themselves, instead of paying the highest rent that your child can get away with.

If you have any experience of poverty, you should understand how viscerally unfair the existence of 'rich kids' seem, and how damaging it is to society.

[altmanaltman]

> To your second point: a company (or any kind of organisation) is continuous work. It's a very obvious retort to your analogy. It would be akin to the author writing a book in a series every year for twenty years, then giving their rights to their child who keeps writing books every year, and every book only has 20 years of copyright. Seems fair to me.

I don't understand how that is fair though? Why should the author give away their rights without any compensation to the public is my point. Continous work is not really relevant to this, otherwise you would have concede that any previous work done by the company in 20 years including their trademarks, logos, ideas should be free for the public to use? Otherwise it is clearly unfair that we treat writers with one set of law regarding property but have another set of laws for every other business?

And yes, capitalism is not good but my point is that it supports inheritance as a system. It doesn't care where you got the money. Is it fair? Of course not. The root of this is based on exploitation and it is what the world has accepted as the common form of economy.

And yes, I have experienced poverty but I don't think its viscerally unfair that "rich kids" exist. Why is it unfair in an objective term? Because they got handed things for free? Or because they have it better than you? In either case, it would be very easy to find examples of people who have it 10 times worse than you and who think your existence is unfair. But is it really?

> If your grandparents gave you a house for free, and you used that enormous advantage to pur your money elsewhere and then own 2, 3 houses, and your child then gets 10, that's 10 houses that people could own themselves, instead of paying the highest rent that your child can get away with.

Or you could also lose all your money by being stupid with it and not having any skills. If you have the skill to build upon the foundation, why is it luck? Why are we assuming just because your grandparents gave you a house for free, you'll automatically continue to build upon it and not lose it (which happens a lot more often than you would think). Should that skill not be respected? Who are you to determine what is fair and what is not.

[monknomo]

So what? Why should the state grant you a monopoly at all?

The reason is to encourage people to create useful writings and make useful discoveries. But we need to balance this encouragement with the benefit we get by making these writings and discoveries available to everyone. By granting a time-bound monopoly the state rewards creators, and by ensuring this time period is not excessive, spreads the benefit among the populace.

Plus, with a time bound benefit, you have to keep on creating, which is good for everyone under this regime.

These aren't, like, inherent rights, they are contingent

[altmanaltman]

The point isn't why the state should grant me (or writers) a monopoly. But rather, why should the principle not be applied to all property and ownership and not just copyright for creative works? Why should one lose ownership over their said work if they are a writer but they shouldn't lose ownership of their trade secrets because they are a high-frequency trader? Or more so, why should only the creative field worry about the public better good when it comes to ownership and property? The conversation for public domain must extend to everything and not just works or art if one really believes in it.

[lsaferite]

Funny that you are comparing Copyrights and Trade Secrets. The monopoly granted on Copyright is predicated on it being published. Trade Secrets, by definition, are not published. Copyright is granted based on the value to the public provided by the author publishing their works. Trade Secrets have no such protection as they are not meant for the public good. They have other protection from theft, but once they are published, there is no protection of the information.

[altmanaltman]

Copyright does not depend on publication. In most countries (including the U.S. and those following the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works), copyright arises automatically the moment an original work is fixed in a tangible medium. And there is no actual legal justification for it to be "meant for the public good" in law or policy.

One philosophical justification for copyright is that it encourages creators to produce and eventually share creative works. But the law doesn't ask whether a work provides public value before granting copyright.

You are undermining the argument by including your faulty understanding of law and missing the bigger point. I am not saying copyright and trade secrets are treated the same in terms of protection by law, I am saying they should be. Because as a writer, I do not want to give my life's work away and let people do whatever they want with it. I want it to stay in my family and I should have the legal right to do it. If that means registering a company and using other laws to protect my work, so be it, but it is not meant to be given away for "public good" in my opinion just because its a work of art.