I know that not everyone will agree with me but I’ve always believed that it’s less of a length of time and more of it being that the copyright should expire as soon as you’re no longer producing copies of, maintaining and/or selling it. I believe this because, from my prospective, if you’re no longer providing a copyrighted piece of media, then you’re clearly no longer looking to profit off of it, or at least keep it publicly available, and therefor don’t need it to be copyrighted anymore.

I think the original 14 year with 14 year renewal was fine. That keeps it closed for almost two generations. that is more than enough time. Renewal should be allowed by spouses and children of an author if they die before they can renew it.

If I wrote a book about Bean Man the super hero, than I should maintain all rights to the concept of Bean Man and the related “characters/world” until I die or put it under public domain. The rights can be inherited by 1 generation, but they have 10 years to do something relevant with it or it falls into public domain. Also if the IP sits unused for 20 years, clear derivatives can be made so long as it’s clear the original creator was not involved.

However, the actual product, the books I write fall into a different category. After 30 years or, 1 year unavailable to legally purchase by an average person*, the books become free to share under a creative common license that does not allow for derivatives, or profit. In other words, the book it self becomes free for everyone but someone can’t take the IP and make a new “Bean Man” story (unless the copyright is no longer in effect).

* if I try some shit like sell it cash only on the 31st of February or charge a absurd price, all of my past and future works will be put into public domain as a “fuck you for being piece of shit”.

My personal opinion is that copyright should be strong in a manner inversely proportional to the size of the entity that controls that copyright. There should also be an extensive amount of work put into patching circumventions of this law.

If I personally make a little cartoon cat guy and make it big but I’m still just like one person making animations by hand I should be able to keep copyright on my creation pretty much until I die.

If I’m a multi-million dollar corporation the copyright protection should fall off dramatically. Corporations can still make a big profit on things they just can’t be the sole proprietor forever.

I’m not sure what exact figures would be fair but you get the principal, smaller entity longer protection. Basically the opposite of whatever the fuck Disney is doing to the law.

The original version of the USA copyright law had it right:

United States copyright law traces its lineage back to the British Statute of Anne, which influenced the first U.S. federal copyright law, the Copyright Act of 1790. The length of copyright established by the Founding Fathers was 14 years with an option to renew it once for 14 more.

After a quarter century, if it’s still relevant, then it’s part of community culture and everybody should be able to have access to it.

The purpose of copyright should be to allow authors to live off their work, and the purpose of its expiration should be to allow society at large to benefit from it.

Given that, I’d favor a return to the origins of the Statute of Anne, so something like 15 years with the chance of a single extension of 15 more years. Only the original author can apply for the extension, but the rights don’t expire with their death and can be sold or inherited.

This would give people 30 years to earn money from their work, and if a business buys them they get at most 15 years to use them, without the chance of hoarding them for too long.

I guess the ideal duration could be more or less than that, but I feel a good rule of thumb is: if some work came out during my lifetime, I have a reasonable chance to see it become part of the public domain while I’m still alive (and potentially use it to make something else from it).

The lifetime of the copyright owner of the original work unless he or she forfeits it to public domain willingly.

The original duration of copyright was a flat 14 years, with a single additional 14 year extension if the copyright holder applied for it. So 28 years in total. It turns out that after 28 years the vast, vast majority of copyrighted works have already earned essentially all of the money that they will ever earn. Most of them go out of print forever before that point. It’s only a rare few works that end up becoming “classics” and spawning “franchises” that last beyond that point. We’re sacrificing the utility of the vast bulk of what should be in the public domain for the sake of making those occasional lucky hits into cash cows. There’s a great paper by Rufus Pollock, Forever Minus a Day? Calculating Optimal Copyright Term, wherein he uses rigorous economic analysis to calculate that the optimal duration of copyright for generating the maximum value for society is 15 years with a 99% confidence interval extending up to 38 years. So remarkably the original law hit the right duration almost exactly through sheer happenstance.

In an earlier paper he also determined that the optimal duration of copyright actually decreases as it becomes easier to distribute work, perhaps somewhat counterintuitively.

Copyrights should expire five years from the date of initial publication at most.

The copyright should be nontransferable and exclusively held by the original creator/creators.

The creator(s) should be the people who substantively contributed to the work. Monetary contributions are not substantive.

The rights holder should be an actual human person(s) not a corporate entity.

The copyrighted work should enter public domain immediately upon the death of the last living rights holder or upon the expiration of the copyright. Whichever happens first.

Any decision to license the work should require the unanimous consent of all living rights holders.

If a rights holder is rendered incapable of making licensing decisions under suspicious circumstances all licenses to the work are immediately voided and no new licenses can be issued.

Zero.

Copyright system barely ever benefits the authors themselves. Instead, it is one of the forces perpetuating the dominance of large businesses, and allowing monopolies and oligopolies to proliferate.

Particularly egregious are patents in the field of technology. We essentially agree to stifle the progress in the name of profits of patent holders - profits they’ll take from us - and it is not alright.

We must keep technology in the public domain for the benefit of society, and we must work on better forms of author compensation.

I dunno, why not ask Disney how long it should be? They seem to have opinions on it.

It started on the same level as patents: 14 years. It could be renewed once for a fee. Anything beyond was a mistake.

I don’t think copywrong should exist at all. Either it’s kept private or it’s in the public domain. That’s all there is to it.

15 years default, with the option to apply for a 5-year extension twice. In order for an extension to be granted, the copyright holder must continue to make the work readily accessible.

In addition, I would have a clause where if a work is not being made readily accessible even in those first 15 years (delisted from digital storefronts or streaming services, software not compatible with modern platforms, or 5+ years out of print for physical media), copyright is considered to be in a weaker state where piracy for personal/noncommercial use is legal.

I think copyright should expire the moment it is no longer actively being printed or produced. Out of Print should equal Out of Copyright. For older works, it they’ve ever gone out of print, that’s a good time to enter the public domain. Go ahead and get a good initial run, but when you cease making your living off it, let others have a try.

I understand this is not a popular take. I could compromise and allow the original 14 year + 14 year renewal.

Let’s think about upper tolerable limits: there’s zero justification for copyright existing past the death of the original author, and I emphasize original author as the sale of copyrights to corporate entities offends me deeply. I would see copyrights as licensable, but never fully transferable or even ownable by any but a non-corporate human individual.

But even the lifespan of the original author seems a bit long.

To be perfectly honest, in my true ideal world, copyright would not exist, and payment for works of art would not exist except in as much as everyone on earth would receive everything they need to live and thrive. Art would then be created by artists because they want to create art, and there would be no restriction on use whatsoever.