Pratchett: Unwritten novels destroyed

[Kato]

Copyright lasts long enough that, if the creator has a new-born child when they die, that child will benefit from the royalties until they're of pension age. That seems fair. Let's not tilt the creator-audience financial relationship any further towards the audience. Of course you, as an audience member, want it to be less than 70 years - you like having free stuff. The point of copyright is to give more protection to the creators than the audience would voluntarily choose.

I'm not sure whether you are serious or whether the irony is poorly conveyed in a forum thread..
Current copyright laws are pretty ridiculous. I'm all for protecting a creators intellectual property but for it to last until their children are at pension age is a joke. It's not justified and there's not really a good reason for it.

[Mechalich]

I'm not sure whether you are serious or whether the irony is poorly conveyed in a forum thread..
Current copyright laws are pretty ridiculous. I'm all for protecting a creators intellectual property but for it to last until their children are at pension age is a joke. It's not justified and there's not really a good reason for it.

Indeed, the only reason to preserve things beyond the life of the author at all, is that it is possible for an author to complete works late in life and/or die suddenly and it is useful to allow the estate to manage the primary monetization phase or decide the conclusion of ongoing works. The recent case of Robert Jordan and the Wheel of Time series is a good example of why this is important, as is this specific Terry Pratchett case, since due to his illness he was unable to reliably make plans that would be carried out prior to his passing.

Copyright protections are not intended to provide monetary support for heirs. In fact it's not really intended to provide monetary support at all - copyright protection exists regardless of whether or not the author chooses to distribute their work (like that Wu-Tang clan album they made only one copy of). It is intended to preserve creative control. There's no reason for the dead to retain creative control over anything, they're dead.

[factotum]

Copyright protections are not intended to provide monetary support for heirs.

Disney's heirs would disagree with you on that one, and they seem to have a lot of influence over the American government, so...

[Anonymouswizard]

I'm not sure whether you are serious or whether the irony is poorly conveyed in a forum thread..
Current copyright laws are pretty ridiculous. I'm all for protecting a creators intellectual property but for it to last until their children are at pension age is a joke. It's not justified and there's not really a good reason for it.

Yes, I could see an argument for long enough to support an author's kids to adulthood, so roughly life+20 years, but after that it seems to mainly protect corporations (as well as the offspring too lazy to work themselves).

Is that right or wrong? Well, personally I'm supportive of the public domain and the ability for others to use your works. I'm also supportive of free content, although I feel like I should be better whenever I type 0 into a Pay What You Want box (I plan to pay for the physical copies of those I like). I currently plan to release any work I actually complete for PWYW, and release it into the public domain on my death (sorry kids, time to get a real job), because I might as well put my money where my mouth is. Although this might change if I get picked up by a publisher, I'm very much stating in my will that all my characters are public domain (which to me is the important one, I'm happy to pay money for an out of copyright story). Why do I care if they appear in other books, I'll be dead.

[Hazyshade]

(as well as the offspring too lazy to work themselves).

There are not enough jobs for everyone who needs one. If those offspring can stay out of the labour market, that's a win for society.

I'll say it again: Audiences will always want more free stuff. You used to be able to make a living selling recorded music, now you can't. The internet killed it. Sure, there's "disruptive marketing" (giving things away for free) but it's only worth it if a) building the brand is more important than making money i.e. you aren't already famous, and b) it's news, i.e. you aren't the 800th person doing it.

Asking the audience whether disruptive marketing is a good idea is like asking a barber if you need a haircut.

And when the content is devalued, the act of producing it is devalued too. Pay from a 4-hour bar gig in NYC in the 70's? $75. Pay from a 4-hour bar gig in NYC in 2017? $75. No, that's not adjusted for inflation.

[Anonymouswizard]

There are not enough jobs for everyone who needs one. If those offspring can stay out of the labour market, that's a win for society.

I'll say it again: Audiences will always want more free stuff. You used to be able to make a living selling recorded music, now you can't. The internet killed it. Sure, there's "disruptive marketing" (giving things away for free) but it's only worth it if a) building the brand is more important than making money i.e. you aren't already famous, and b) it's news, i.e. you aren't the 800th person doing it.

Asking the audience whether disruptive marketing is a good idea is like asking a barber if you need a haircut.

And when the content is devalued, the act of producing it is devalued too. Pay from a 4-hour bar gig in NYC in the 70's? $75. Pay from a 4-hour bar gig in NYC in 2017? $75. No, that's not adjusted for inflation.

I'll agree we don't have enough jobs, but that means we need to be looking for solutions, rather than just taking a small number of people out of the job market. I'm going to stop there before I get political, but if that's your goal then you're going about it the wrong way.

(Also, as I understand it, we want as many people as possible available for work so we can pick out the talent)

Also, I think you're overestimating the number of people who want free stuff. As I understand it selling recorded music is harder to make a living out of because of how royalties changed, not the internet (which has actually made it easier). But in many cases people are willing to pay money instead of taking the free route if it's convenient enough, sure I could have watch Babylon 5 for free but is it really worth my time when I can get it off Amazon?

I'm also of the belief that people will support quality content. Now I'm not going to get any significant money from my content because it's not quality, but there are people who manage to make a living from 'free' content. Not a massive amount, but honestly that's the same for paid content.

Now we obviously have different views on this, but I'm against extended copyright to the point where the author's children never need to work. Support until adulthood yes, because sometimes things happen, but not until old age. If only because a life where you never work isn't actually a fun life, humans like being productive. So yes kids, go out and get a real job instead of living on somebody else's royalties, you'll be happier.

[Mechalich]

You used to be able to make a living selling recorded music, now you can't. The internet killed it.

Due to forum rules there's a limitation on how this can be responded to, but you're over generalizing. Recorded music sales provided a major revenue stream for musicians for a period lasting from roughly the end of WWII - when vinyl records became widespread - to perhaps 2010, or slightly more than half a century. That was a technologically enabled historical anomaly.

[Hazyshade]

I'll agree we don't have enough jobs, but that means we need to be looking for solutions, rather than just taking a small number of people out of the job market.

Obviously. No-one suggested "just". But this is trivia.

Also, I think you're overestimating the number of people who want free stuff. As I understand it selling recorded music is harder to make a living out of because of how royalties changed, not the internet (which has actually made it easier). But in many cases people are willing to pay money instead of taking the free route if it's convenient enough, sure I could have watch Babylon 5 for free but is it really worth my time when I can get it off Amazon?

I'm also of the belief that people will support quality content. Now I'm not going to get any significant money from my content because it's not quality, but there are people who manage to make a living from 'free' content. Not a massive amount, but honestly that's the same for paid content.

You're looking at the equation from the audience side. You're telling me that you, as an audience member, don't know why the creative industries should be shrinking. But from the creator's side of the equation, they are shrinking. We don't have to try and predict that from the behaviour of the audiences - that's just simple observation. If your audience-behaviour model doesn't predict the shrinking of the industry as an output, there's something wrong with the model.

Recorded music sales provided a major revenue stream for musicians for a period lasting from roughly the end of WWII - when vinyl records became widespread - to perhaps 2010, or slightly more than half a century. That was a technologically enabled historical anomaly.

Right, and before that there was sheet music, and live music was a bigger industry. The working classes had music halls, the upper classes had great Victorian opera houses that weren't all falling down. There was the professional D'Oyly Carte Opera Company who survived 70-odd years just performing the works of 2 individuals (the copyright expiry torpedoed that business model). There were people whose job it was to go from town to town demonstrating the latest Scott Joplin rags on the piano so that the sheet music would sell copies. Recorded music hurt live musicians roughly in proportion to how recording sales helped them. Music was always something you would pay to have delivered into your ears, whatever changes happened to the delivery method. Now, it's not. If you look at the very top of the tree, there are always going to be Biebers. "Be famous" will always be a reliable income generator. It's the friendly neighbourhood musicians that tell you more about the state of the industry.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Most patents only last around 20 years. If you invent a new life saving drug you have that much time to fully develop it, test it, get it authorized and get your money back out, and by the time you can start selling you usually have about 4 years of your patent left. The whole development process furthermore usually costs well over a billion dollars. That's expensive even for a movie. Honestly, I'd be completely fine with copyright that lasts something like 28 years or the lifetime of the author plus 5 years*, whichever one is longer. And that's on the generous side. It's not like you can reasonably expect your job to be "write something ones, score a big hit, don't save or invest anything, live of it your entire life, and maybe have your kids live of it their entire lives too". That's simply not how jobs work.

Plus, copyright is separately tracked for separate works. That's why the new Alice in Wonderland movie could use anything from the book for free, but not anything from either of the previous two famous movie versions. So, if the original Star Wars A New Hope had by now been rights free (which it wouldn't have been under the 28 or life+5 I suggested earlier, but that's a side note), the Imperial March would still be copyrighted, since it's from the second movie. Jabba the Hutt only appears by name in the first movie, so as a character still protected, any changes in the special editions, the prequels, still protected. As long as a work gets added to and people like what gets added you will have to deal with the original creator (or the current rights holder, under the proposal I did earlier) to get the rights to everything. If people don't like what gets added and some corporation is just sitting on the rights because they can all the good bits end up in the public domain and other people get a shot. And it's not like a shorter copyright would screw over active artists either. If the original Rolling Stones put on a concert, people will come.

The current situation is that I can copy any technological invention that existed at the time of the Gulf War completely for free, because we've agreed as a civilization that that benefits our technological progression while still being fair enough to the original inventor, yet if I want to use a Jazz tune from World War 1 I have to check for rights, because when it comes to our cultural progression and the rights of an artist the world works completely differently. And that's why we don't have a genre called ragtimestep.

*If you're going to have it extend to the authors lifetime I think + a few years is a good addition, it prevents speculation on an authors death. Without it say a large studio wanting to adapt a good book by an old author might hold off, because in the event he dies someone else will just make their own much cheaper version and eat all the profit they were going to make. But with the +5 years they still hold their exclusive rights for long enough to enter cinema without competition.

[Anonymouswizard]

Obviously. No-one suggested "just". But this is trivia.



You're looking at the equation from the audience side. You're telling me that you, as an audience member, don't know why the creative industries should be shrinking. But from the creator's side of the equation, they are shrinking. We don't have to try and predict that from the behaviour of the audiences - that's just simple observation. If your audience-behaviour model doesn't predict the shrinking of the industry as an output, there's something wrong with the model.

Tell you what, I'll put my money where my mouth is.

I plan on resurrecting my gaming blog come December, and I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year (planning for my original idea Upon A Darkerned Star has fallen through due to having no idea what happens in the second half, so my back up of Life on the Cutting Edge, a space opera cop story, is being planned). On 1st January 2018, before midnight GMT, I will upload my first draft to my gaming blog for free. I will spend the next several months to a year uploading successive drafts for free. I will not release the story into the public domain during this, because I'm fine with 'copyright for roughly the lifetime of the author', but I will do in my will.

Additionally I shall not seek a publisher. Although I wouldn't mind being traditionally published, it is not a dream of mine and I am happy being self published if at least one person chooses to read my work.

As a creator I will make my work free for those who want it. Heck, I won't even give the option to buy it until the product is finished because I think that's dishonest.

Maybe then I still won't understand your position, but at least I won't be a hypocrite. Because I'd rather put my money where my mouth is then talk big and then not follow through.

This post is not intended as legally binding, but complaining is allowed if I don't follow through.

[Tyndmyr]

I posit a different reason for the shrinking of the number of creative peoples. Well, the shrinking via some forms of accounting. If one counts every webcomic author, and every game designer, and so forth, well, we do have quite a few creative types. I think it's a fair thing to acknowledge, even if the number of professional authors is shrinking per se.

But this other reason is...communication. I can read any story written by anyone, pretty much whenever I want. I'm not overly limited by what my local bookstore stocks, or to current books only....any new book released is competing with just about every book ever written for my attention. There are an awful lot of books out there. I cannot possibly read all of them, and probably can't even read all that I might be interested in. The nature of the internet is that we need fewer authors to give us access to a wide range of books. This is unfortunate for traditional bookstores, but such is life.

Still, there is great value in the other creative enterprises that the internet enables.

[Hazyshade]

The current situation is that I can copy any technological invention that existed at the time of the Gulf War completely for free, because we've agreed as a civilization that that benefits our technological progression while still being fair enough to the original inventor, yet if I want to use a Jazz tune from World War 1 I have to check for rights, because when it comes to our cultural progression and the rights of an artist the world works completely differently. And that's why we don't have a genre called ragtimestep.

Because inventions and creative works are fundamentally different things. Inventions solve problems. If you invent something and patent it, you've prevented anyone else from solving the same problem in the same way, which there's every chance they would have done. Look at Swann and Edison. Look at all the patent applications that get turned down because they're too similar to another patented invention. Whereas two authors would write completely different novels even if you gave them the same plot, characters and setting.

Tangentially, Scott Joplin's copyright expired in 1988, so if ragtimestep isn't a thing it's not for lack of material. And ragtime isn't remotely difficult to compose on a piano. Modern pianists laugh at the struggles their predecessors had with very basic syncopation. On a good day I could improvise you some faux-Joplin that you'd never know from the real thing.

Tell you what, I'll put my money where my mouth is.

I plan on resurrecting my gaming blog come December, and I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year (planning for my original idea Upon A Darkerned Star has fallen through due to having no idea what happens in the second half, so my back up of Life on the Cutting Edge, a space opera cop story, is being planned). On 1st January 2018, before midnight GMT, I will upload my first draft to my gaming blog for free. I will spend the next several months to a year uploading successive drafts for free. I will not release the story into the public domain during this, because I'm fine with 'copyright for roughly the lifetime of the author', but I will do in my will.

Additionally I shall not seek a publisher. Although I wouldn't mind being traditionally published, it is not a dream of mine and I am happy being self published if at least one person chooses to read my work.

As a creator I will make my work free for those who want it. Heck, I won't even give the option to buy it until the product is finished because I think that's dishonest.

Maybe then I still won't understand your position, but at least I won't be a hypocrite. Because I'd rather put my money where my mouth is then talk big and then not follow through.

This post is not intended as legally binding, but complaining is allowed if I don't follow through.

Yeah, I don't really understand what you're trying to prove there? You can release something and not charge for it - great. So can I. I'm literally right this minute working on a piano thingybob that I intend to release onto facebook for $0.00 as soon as it's done. I'll post it here too, if you like. Because absolutely no-one cares about me or my music enough to pay me a cent for it. If I were trying to make a point about the creative industries, I would try charging for it, and see whether I get fewer sales than I would have hypothetically done in 1970? But the most anyone could possibly prove by giving people free stuff, is that people like free stuff.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Tangentially, Scott Joplin's copyright expired in 1988, so if ragtimestep isn't a thing it's not for lack of material.

Okay, you got me there.

Maybe that's even worse though, material stays copyrighted so long that by the time it gets out people aren't even interested in using it anymore.

Sure, we have plenty of pop culture to enjoy, and parody is allowed with no regards to copyright, so I can't really complain (yet it sounds like I'm doing just that, it's a mystery), but I can't help but think that there might have been some cool places people could have taken a film like Snow White back when it was still relevant. In 2036 or probably even later if ever? Not so much. And that's pretty much the best aged movie in the world.

[Anonymouswizard]

Yeah, I don't really understand what you're trying to prove there? You can release something and not charge for it - great. So can I. I'm literally right this minute working on a piano thingybob that I intend to release onto facebook for $0.00 as soon as it's done. I'll post it here too, if you like. Because absolutely no-one cares about me or my music enough to pay me a cent for it. If I were trying to make a point about the creative industries, I would try charging for it, and see whether I get fewer sales than I would have hypothetically done in 1970? But the most anyone could possibly prove by giving people free stuff, is that people like free stuff.

Prove? Nothing.

State that I believe that the internet hasn't made creative works make less money, yes. I'm willing to try to prove that by releasing a rough version for free, and releasing a finished version (either PWYW or for a relatively small amount) and see what sales I get. Maybe I'm completely wrong, but I think the internet has mainly been a benefit for creative work. Really, the putting it up for free is just to prove I'm actually working on it and to get out there, I fully plan to charge for my second work (at least PWYW, likely a good few quid set price) from the word go and see if there's any difference in how people react/how much I make.

Really, this isn't my field. But the intention of copyright is, if I remember correctly, to allow the author to make a reasonable profit off their work by retaining the rights to who can copy it. Not for the heirs of that author to not have to work, or allow companies to make lots of money off the works of the long dead (and it really is companies who benefit from modern copyright). My real point was I'm willing to follow through and release all my stuff into the public domain even if it makes money, because eh.

[Friv]

There are not enough jobs for everyone who needs one. If those offspring can stay out of the labour market, that's a win for society.

I'll say it again: Audiences will always want more free stuff. You used to be able to make a living selling recorded music, now you can't. The internet killed it. Sure, there's "disruptive marketing" (giving things away for free) but it's only worth it if a) building the brand is more important than making money i.e. you aren't already famous, and b) it's news, i.e. you aren't the 800th person doing it.

Asking the audience whether disruptive marketing is a good idea is like asking a barber if you need a haircut.

And when the content is devalued, the act of producing it is devalued too. Pay from a 4-hour bar gig in NYC in the 70's? $75. Pay from a 4-hour bar gig in NYC in 2017? $75. No, that's not adjusted for inflation.

So, hey, I'm a writer. Not speaking as an audience member.

Copyright should be 30 years flat. That is a full generation. It's long enough for the goal of the work - the author being able to control how their publication is spread and looked it - to be met. After that, it should enter into the public domain, in order to allow other artists to make use of and build on it for their own art.

Lots of our greatest art has come from taking other people's stuff and building on it, creating new and exciting things out of those concepts. This is what excessively long copyright takes away from us.

(Now, with all of that in mind, I would be okay if "conceptual copyright" separated from "literal copyright", in the sense that after X years people are allowed to write their own sequels and spin-offs and deconstructions of your work, but you still get to decide who prints the unaltered original. But that might be a legal nightmare to write up.)

[Legato Endless]

Lots of our greatest art has come from taking other people's stuff and building on it, creating new and exciting things out of those concepts. This is what excessively long copyright takes away from us.

Also notable in encouraging this sort of cultural interaction was part of the original idea for enacting such laws in the first place before they were revised.

[Hazyshade]

So, hey, I'm a writer. Not speaking as an audience member.

Copyright should be 30 years flat. That is a full generation. It's long enough for the goal of the work - the author being able to control how their publication is spread and looked it - to be met. After that, it should enter into the public domain, in order to allow other artists to make use of and build on it for their own art.

Lots of our greatest art has come from taking other people's stuff and building on it, creating new and exciting things out of those concepts. This is what excessively long copyright takes away from us.

(Now, with all of that in mind, I would be okay if "conceptual copyright" separated from "literal copyright", in the sense that after X years people are allowed to write their own sequels and spin-offs and deconstructions of your work, but you still get to decide who prints the unaltered original. But that might be a legal nightmare to write up.)

You want to revert to the 1909 copyright régime. Okay, but publishing and distribution is different now than in 1909. What counts as published for the purpose of copyright? Would Pratchett's unpublished fragment's be considered released upon his death? If you perform something live but don't record it, is that released? Does releasing a revised or remastered version restart the clock? Should sections of multi-part works have their own copyright clocks?

It may be that there's a hierarchy of creators, with fans on the bottom level, and once you get below a certain point in the hierarchy copyright is no longer your friend, because making stuff out of the creations of those above you improves your bottom line more than losing royalties degrades it. But how much does copyright actually stop people making derivative works? Cover versions of songs are a thing, so is fan fiction.

[Anonymouswizard]

You want to revert to the 1909 copyright régime. Okay, but publishing and distribution is different now than in 1909. What counts as published for the purpose of copyright? Would Pratchett's unpublished fragment's be considered released upon his death? If you perform something live but don't record it, is that released? Does releasing a revised or remastered version restart the clock? Should sections of multi-part works have their own copyright clocks?

It may be that there's a hierarchy of creators, with fans on the bottom level, and once you get below a certain point in the hierarchy copyright is no longer your friend, because making stuff out of the creations of those above you improves your bottom line more than losing royalties degrades it. But how much does copyright actually stop people making derivative works? Cover versions of songs are a thing, so is fan fiction.

For the first paragraph, that's something to work out. But we can roughly equate a webserial or webcomic that later gets physically published to a magazine serial that later gets published in a single volume, there is copyright for both versions which may end at separate times (see, this is why I think lifetime of the author plus a handful of years will be easier). We can do the same thing for revised versions, the revised version gets it's own copyright different from the original version's. Unpublished fragments is an interesting question, and I have no idea. I would personally give sections of a multi-part work their own copyrights. We can draw ideas from the past and work off of them.

You bring up an interesting point with fanfiction (I am not talking about covers as I know zilch). Fanfiction is in a weird grey area where some of it breaks copyright, some of it doesn't, and very little of it makes money (barring Fifty Shades of Mortal Instruments and the like). On the one hand it's a great thing as it makes people express their creativity if they have trouble writing their own universes, on the other hand it is very much using somebody else's world generally without permission. It's not totally harmless, but as long as it's kept free it seems to do more good than harm.

Now we could argue about this forever, or we can agree we are all coming from different places here. While yes I love free stuff, I'm also 100% okay with paying money so creators can make more stuff, which is why my kindle includes both books I've downloaded from Project Gutenberg (where I trust they are actually out of copyright) and ones I've bought from the kindle store. The book I'm reading now is one I bought, and after it I'm going to read a free book I got from an author's website (and then buy the official ebook if I like it). Then I might read the short fiction anthology the creators of Eclipse Phase put out, or I might spend another £7 and finish the trilogy my current book is a part of. Yes I like free stuff, and love it when books are free for a limited time, but I prefer choice in the stuff I consume.

[Bohandas]

Copyright needs to go entirely. I understand the purpose it was created for, but it's like an infected victim in a zombie or vampire movie - it's no longer what it was, and what it is now is twisted, evil, and monstrous.

Also I have now officially lost all respect for Pratchett

[Bohandas]

I'm surprised that they actually went through with it. Vergil asked asked for his unfinished Aeneid to be destroyed, and it luckily wasn't. The same happened with a bunch of poets. I understand the desire not to have other people tamper with his creations, especially since it would have aimed to nothing else than money-making. However, it would have been enough to request the works not to be completed by others, and be left in their state. They would then have been useful for academics, or there could have been something like History of the Middle Earth.

I agree. That kind of request simply shouldn't be honored. There's nothing to gain by following it, nor is there anything to lose by ignoring it; the dead are dead.

You want to revert to the 1909 copyright régime. Okay, but publishing and distribution is different now than in 1909. What counts as published for the purpose of copyright? Would Pratchett's unpublished fragment's be considered released upon his death? If you perform something live but don't record it, is that released? Does releasing a revised or remastered version restart the clock? Should sections of multi-part works have their own copyright clocks?

I would start the clock the second ink hits paper or fingers touch keyboard and not stop it or turn it back for anything in heaven or earth

[Talakeal]

And when the content is devalued, the act of producing it is devalued too. Pay from a 4-hour bar gig in NYC in the 70's? $75. Pay from a 4-hour bar gig in NYC in 2017? $75. No, that's not adjusted for inflation.

Why do you think that is?

And what does it have to do with copyright law?

[Mechalich]

I agree. That kind of request simply shouldn't be honored. There's nothing to gain by following it, nor is there anything to lose by ignoring it; the dead are dead.

Terry Pratchett had Alzheimer's. He was in a specific situation wherein he spent a significant number of years - in which he actually published several novels - with distinctly limited control over his mental processes. An author has a right to destroy anything they haven't published - in the same way a painter can destroy an incomplete painting or a sculptor can smash an in-progress statue and so on. Pratchett made a decision that, while he retained full function he wanted to be sure of what would happen when he ultimately died, knowing that he would not retain function in the meantime and that decisions made later were not viable and trustworthy.

It is important to recognize that people in the final stages of life are vulnerable to exploitation and that, in the case of creative types this can severely impact their overall legacy if certain actions are taken. The obvious example here is Harper Lee, in which the publication of Go Set a Watchman was at best dubiously authorized by the elderly and infirm author and has had a massive impact on her literary legacy.

Speaking as a writer, I have pieces on my hard drive that I never want anyone else to read, but that retain utility to me to have around because they remind me of choices and practices. If I received a terminal diagnosis I would absolutely take steps to insure that 'everything in folder X be erased upon my death' and would want to be confident that would actually happen if I ultimately proved unable to do it myself.

[factotum]

Copyright needs to go entirely. I understand the purpose it was created for, but it's like an infected victim in a zombie or vampire movie - it's no longer what it was, and what it is now is twisted, evil, and monstrous.

Well, I'm sure every creative individual in the world is darned glad you aren't in control of the copyright laws, then. Copyright exists now for the same reason it has always existed: to prevent someone writing a word-for-word copy of your novel and passing it off as their own. Furthermore, it is always the right of an author to *not* publish their work, no matter how much you would personally like to see said work.

I just assume Terry Pratchett was a good judge of his own material and knew that his literary legacy would be tarnished if the unpublished stuff ever saw print, and I have no problem with that.

[Bohandas]

Well, I'm sure every creative individual in the world is darned glad you aren't in control of the copyright laws, then. Copyright exists now for the same reason it has always existed: to prevent someone writing a word-for-word copy of your novel and passing it off as their own.

No. No. Plagiarism in this fashion should still be illegal, BUT it should be illegal as a form of labeling fraud/false advertisement.

Well, I'm sure every creative individual in the world is darned glad you aren't in control of the copyright laws, then.

We don't need them. There are more than enough people in the world with a genuine desire to create, and it is trivial enough to distribute creations, that the total and permanent collapse of the commercial content industry would be no significant loss.

EDIT:
So you know what, i guess it doesn't matter that the stories were destroyed; I'd be dead before they reached the public domain anyway and there's no way I'm spending my hard earned money just to line the pockets of a dead man

I'll say it again: Audiences will always want more free stuff. You used to be able to make a living selling recorded music, now you can't. The internet killed it

Such is the way of progress. Should the spread of the electric light have been suppressed for the benefit of the lamplighters or the internal combustion engine suppressed for the benefit of the coal shovelers? Should push-button elevators have been overregulated so the elevator operators could keep their jobs and relevance? Shall we suppress research into self-driving cars for the benefit of cabbies and truckers?

EDIT:

And on a related note I find it patently ridiculous that anybody is paid to do the jobs that I do. I'm a pharmacy technician but in my particular position I don't actually count pills, I just fetch specific pre-filled bottles for the pharmacist; I could literally be replaced with a repurposed vending machine.

I also theoretically take tickets at a stadium part time, but it's a freestanding self-service barcode reader that actually checks the tickets. My job is to repeat a stock platitude to incoming patrons and to direct them to the box office for a new copy if their ticket is too damaged to scan, both of which could probably be done by the machine

It's actually made me very depressed.

[Khedrac]

We don't need them. There are more than enough people in the world with a genuine desire to create, and it is trivial enough to distribute creations, that the total and permanent collapse of the commercial content industry would be no significant loss.

On the contrary, Copyright laws (which admittedly are pretty poor) serve the same purpose as the Patronage system which they replaced (which was a lot worse). They exist to enable creative people to make a living from their creations.

We could discuss the "after death" side of it - the ability of said creative people to pass a legacy to their dependents (think pension for spouse), which seems to have been abused by companies trying to protect material they legally acquired the rights to (in the UK it was further messed up by J M Barrie leaving the rights to Peter Pan to the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, so the law makers changed the general law to protect those rights instead of creating a special case); however such discussion is pretty much entirely politics and thus may not be carried out on these boards. (I say seems because to assert this would definitely cross the Politics ban, I only hope I have managed to stay clear as is.)

So ignoring the "after death" aspect, you propose removing the ability of authors and artists to be able to make a living from their work - this would reduce the pool of creative people to those creating in their spare time whilst doing another job. Oh, and people comissioned to produce a work for a specific purpose.
I think you would find that the music and flim industries would instantly collapse and stop producing anything recorded. Amateur and semi-professional music groups would still put on concerts and a few might manage to be fully professional, but the only recordings made would be from the advertising budget.
Films would die - these days most of the money of the really successful films comes from the merchandising spin-offs - which would now go elsewhere, thus making the film uneconomic to make.
Probably 90-99% of all new books would cease to be written. Good and well-loved authors who used to be able to produce 1 or 2 books a year would produce perhaps one every 10 years depending how busy their jobs keep them, of course everything would be self-published because the publishers would be out of business.
So most books would effectively be by "new" authors (some of which can be very good), unfortunately the editing would be non-existent (hmm, in some cases we might not notice a difference there) and the authors would be unlikely to get better (it's hard to learn by experience when one doesn't get much experience).
Consider Terry Pratchett's works. His inital books are generally pretty poor when compared to the main body of his works (his last few books suffer form his dementia). Now consider what happens if Terry had been unable to give up his day jobs to concetrate on writing - we would have had far fewer books, and the quality would never have gotten much better than the first few. This is assuming anyone even found out about his books (no bookshops, no advertising budgets, no publishing houses, only ebook or possibly print-on-demand versions available).

[Bohandas]

I think you would find that the music and flim industries would instantly collapse

Yes, that would be extremely likely to happen. It also wouldn't matter. There are plenty of people willing to create just to create, out of pure love of are or desire to express themselves. And even failing that it would free up enough movies and TV shows to last several lifetimes.

Amateur and semi-professional music groups would still put on concerts and a few might manage to be fully professional, but the only recordings made would be from the advertising budget.

Recording devices and storage media are cheap and ubiquitous. Anyone reading this thread on a smartphone or a laptop is probably looking into a camera and in pickup range of a microphone right boe.

This is assuming anyone even found out about his books (no bookshops, no advertising budgets, no publishing houses, only ebook or possibly print-on-demand versions available).

There are no bookshops now.

[Forum Explorer]

Good for Pratchett, and what a fitting end note for his career.

As for copyright, I'd say lifetime + 5 years, with copyright only being able to be held by individuals (so corporations could never hold, contest, or do anything with a copyright, because how can you say if a corporation is 'dead'?).


because right now it's insane how long you have to wait before anyone can touch your work, considering how fast culture moves. In a 100 years most people won't remember anything you've worked on.

[Mechalich]

Yes, that would be extremely likely to happen. It also wouldn't matter. There are plenty of people willing to create just to create, out of pure love of are or desire to express themselves. And even failing that it would free up enough movies and TV shows to last several lifetimes.

Art has production costs. These are admittedly highly variable - with the advent of modern word processing software the only cost to create a novel is time, which is abundant with seven billion people on the planet but this not the same for other forms of artwork. Music production requires high quality equipment, studios, and trained personnel in addition to the artist costs are significantly lower than they used to be and digital generation has broken down barriers - for example the existence of Vocaloid software (Hatsune Miku and her friends) makes it possible for a composer to work without an actual singer - but they are far from zero. The costs of film are even higher. Digital cameras and editing software have reduced costs, but they are still very high, and digital effects - now an expectation - have their own substantial expenses. The vast difference in quality usually found between professionally produced works and the fanfiction, fan comics, and fan films many franchises not only allow but encourage is a testament to this.

Copyright protections are essential to help meet costs and provide creators with the necessary time to devote themselves to producing works effectively and in a timely fashion - even when the work is given away for free as in the case of something like RWBY - which absolutely depends on copyrights to sell the merch that pays the rent of the Rooster Teeth team.

As Khedrac said, there are significant issues with the nature and scope of extant copyright laws, and significant reform is needed, but elimination is not the solution and calling for such an extreme and frankly ridiculous position only benefits the forces that intend to keep things ossified.

There are no bookshops now.

There are plenty of bookstores still existent. The brick-and-mortar book retail experienced a very sharp downturn do to a series of technological changes and corporate consolidation. Several high profile chains were destroyed and others reduced, but the industry was not eliminated. Similar changes are affecting all forms of brick-and-mortar retail, books were just a particularly vulnerable product. Copyright issues were not responsible.

As for copyright, I'd say lifetime + 5 years, with copyright only being able to be held by individuals (so corporations could never hold, contest, or do anything with a copyright, because how can you say if a corporation is 'dead'?).

For something that is produced by the efforts of hundreds or even thousands of people, it makes sense for copyright to be held by a corporate entity. This is particularly true given that something can continue to be produced even after the original creator has passed - I mentioned RWBY above and that certainly applies there. I would say that copyrights that are not held individually ought to be shorter than those that are, significantly so.

[factotum]

I actually think allowing corporations to hold copyrights would improve matters. Think about it: instead of Disney having to get general copyright extended to more and more years after the author's death in order to retain copyright in Walt's works, they can keep the copyrights as a corporation. No more ridiculous "author's death + 90 years" or whatever it currently is.

[Keltest]

I actually think allowing corporations to hold copyrights would improve matters. Think about it: instead of Disney having to get general copyright extended to more and more years after the author's death in order to retain copyright in Walt's works, they can keep the copyrights as a corporation. No more ridiculous "author's death + 90 years" or whatever it currently is.

I'm not sure how exchanging one unreasonable duration for another equally unreasonable duration is an improvement. Yeah, it reduces the amount of work they have to go through to keep The Mouse every time the copyright is about to end, but I don't think that's a good thing.