Quote:But I also similarly believe that limiting copyright to such a short time is also wrong. Why should an artist not receive royalties for their work for at least as long as they live, given the many, many, many downsides to pursuing an artistic career?
Because other people have rights too.
1) If I pursue a career as a walmarkt cashier i also won't earn much money, which is a result of my choosing to supply a job which is already well supplied. basic economics.
2) CD revenues are extremly low, and only the most popular artists make what other people consider significant money out of them. Also the artists need to regularly sue the collection agencies to get their money.
3) Other artists use the work in a new way, creating more culture. think of fanfiction for instance, that is clearly built up on other works, and yet I think we can all agree it's a valuable artistic work. imagine if fanfiction authors for older works could publish their work, or add a donation button to their site
4) Even if the work becomes public domain I can still make money of it, say by playing the song at a concert. With public domain works it's just that anyone can do that likely driving the price down, but i imagine many people would still pay extra to hear it from the original artist.
5) Economic reasons, such as: "Beyond this basic result several other very interesting facts have emerged. First is the differential impact of file-sharing on an artist depending on their existing popularity. According to Blackburn who investigates this issue the ‘bottom’ 3/4 of artists sell more as a consequence of file-sharing while the top 1/4 sell less. Second is the first tentative estimates (by Waldfogel and Rob) of the welfare consequences of file-sharing. Waldfogel and Rob’s dramatic result is that file-sharing on average yields a gain to society three times the loss to the music industry in lost sales. While, as they emphasize, this result is preliminary and based on limited data it indicates the urgent need for more research on this issue as well as the possibility to have a win-win situation in which both creators and the public get a better deal via a change to alternative compensation system such as a levy." Quoted from Rufus Pollock. He also claims that 15 years is the economicaly optimal length of time which some economist dispute, arriving instead at less than 6 years and similar numbers. It depends on the data and assumptions you use to derive the estimate. Regardless most economists seem to agree that optimal copyright length is less than or equal to 15 years.
6) Todays filesharing regime is similar to the prohibition early in the last century. The prohibition created a variety of bad effect on society as a whole, many of which we are still dealing with the fallout of, such as organized crime. It's probably better to fix things before they get as bad.
There we go, those 6 should suffice for now. I think 5 especially addresses the point of the poor artist.
Quote:Moreover, anything popular will continue to be produced after copyright expires, most likely not by the original artist
Of course, the bible forinstance is still being made without any sort of copyright protection, so there is a lot of competition which keeps the price at roughly what it costs to produce and distribute the work. But because of the wide competition there is not much profit in it, so corporations won't earn much on it. if the do a new corperation will start to compete with them and get some of the money, that is the way a free market works.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."