09-01-2016, 07:35 PM
Few artists could outlive the duration of the copyrights of their material when the term was 75 years. One would need to have done the work when a child and then lived to an advanced age. Under that criterion, one of the few creative people who could still be making a good living off royalties on a copyrighted juvenile work if alive to this date seventy or more years later would be Anne Frank. Had she survived to adulthood she would have had plenty of opportunities to make a good living off her talent, even if only by going on a lecture tour to discuss her work. Of course she obviously cannot profit from that. As we know she died before reaching adulthood.
The objective of copyright extension was to protect the interests of corporations that own extant, aging copyrights -- like movie studios, recording companies,. and publishing houses. Even with the extension to 95 years, some works from after 1922 (practically anything in completed form from before January 1, 1923 is in the public domain) will start entering the public domain on January 1, 2019.
Does anyone know of any composer, author, artist, or performer can get any benefit from having a copyright on his own creative activity extended? Will William Faulkner write another novel or will Paul Hindemith compose another musical work due to copyright extension? Absolutely not!
The objective is to ensure that works created in the middle-to-late 1920s and later do not go into the public domain. How that can make life better for such aging copyright-owners as Yoko Ono, or younger ones, is beyond me. If anything, much of the creative activity of our time is the creation of derivative works.
In all fairness I have no problem with busts of people who siphon copyrighted work for their own gain. Just remember: almost all copyrights have either no initial value or have rapidly-diminishing value. Copyrights with no remaining values might as well be released into the public domain.
The objective of copyright extension was to protect the interests of corporations that own extant, aging copyrights -- like movie studios, recording companies,. and publishing houses. Even with the extension to 95 years, some works from after 1922 (practically anything in completed form from before January 1, 1923 is in the public domain) will start entering the public domain on January 1, 2019.
Does anyone know of any composer, author, artist, or performer can get any benefit from having a copyright on his own creative activity extended? Will William Faulkner write another novel or will Paul Hindemith compose another musical work due to copyright extension? Absolutely not!
The objective is to ensure that works created in the middle-to-late 1920s and later do not go into the public domain. How that can make life better for such aging copyright-owners as Yoko Ono, or younger ones, is beyond me. If anything, much of the creative activity of our time is the creation of derivative works.
In all fairness I have no problem with busts of people who siphon copyrighted work for their own gain. Just remember: almost all copyrights have either no initial value or have rapidly-diminishing value. Copyrights with no remaining values might as well be released into the public domain.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.