A better word would have been "undeserved." While promotion, marketing, and financing are important in content utilization, the actual content creators usually see little of the profits (pennies on the dollar), simply because they are forced to sign over their rights to their creation in order to have it promoted. I'm sorry, but that has more to do with media monopolies than market practices.
What is a "reasonable duration" of copyright protection, and why?
O.K., I'll bite. For the time being (at least until we can look at a universal ten year copyright): A work would be copyrighted by the creator for his or her life, with rights assignable for ten years to any corporate entity. Note that this would change the "work-for-hire" copyright provisions drastically (making far more content creators contractors rather than employees). At the end of any ten year period the creator could reassign the rights for another ten years (which, of course would probably mean more negotiations, contracts, and ultimately income for the creator and more competition for the corporations). Should the ten years lapse and the author be deceased, the copyright expires and the product enters the public domain.
Way too much content is bottled up in permanent corporate holdings. How many companies are simply living off of their libraries of content? I would suggest there are many... many who are producing very little new content and living off of old content that finances them (the exact opposite of the Founding Father's rationale for copyright protections). Sure, your mega-content-holders like Sony are producing new things... but usually not in the realm in which they hold their vast libraries (Sony's music division is subsidizing their massive battery recall and the sales of their PS3s). Breaking up the monopolies is a good thing.
Once a large number of persons come to believe they have the right to enjoy free music, movies, and other IP, why would they ever pay a dime for it?
There will always be thieves. The trick is to convince the average person to obey copyright. How much of the music download scene is new releases? How much is legacy tracks (stuff that is more than ten years old)? I doubt anyone knows... but this is an important consideration. Likewise, it is much easier to protect something for a short period of time, rather than a long one. Companies would have an incentive to maximize the profits early... as they know a new contract or loss of copyright is only years away. It focuses the industry on finding new and great things, rather than jealously guarding the few things they already have. That difference alone would radically change the system (and help the problem. If you make most of your money in the first two years of marketing something, who cares if the hackers crack it in five?). You'll never get rid of piracy. But you can change the marketplace so piracy is less valuable (hey, why steal when I just need to wait a few years...?).
I get a royalty of 15% on the books I write. At one time, I considered that too low; but then I figured out what it would cost me to produce, market, and distribute the books myself and decided that 15% was not too bad.
On the other hand, I already produce my books in digital format for the publisher to print. I can envision cutting out the middle man and distributing the files over the Internet directly to the customer. I could charge less and still make a larger profit. I would do that for my next book, if I could figure out a way to prevent one user from buying the book and "sharing" it with a dozen friends.
For the time being (at least until we can look at a universal ten year copyright): A work would be copyrighted by the creator for his or her life, with rights assignable for ten years to any corporate entity. Note that this would change the "work-for-hire" copyright provisions drastically (making far more content creators contractors rather than employees). At the end of any ten year period the creator could reassign the rights for another ten years (which, of course would probably mean more negotiations, contracts, and ultimately income for the creator and more competition for the corporations). Should the ten years lapse and the author be deceased, the copyright expires and the product enters the public domain.
That is a reasonable approach, one I could support.
There will always be thieves. The trick is to convince the average person to obey copyright.
That is what I am trying to do, one thread at a time.
It seems we agree in principle on what should be done. I am content to leave it at that.
Merry Christmas.
One problem with ultra-long-term copyright protection is that it results in much being forever lost. If a particular work is only moderately popular, it may not justify a run to produce more copies of it. The result will be that, when the copyright finally runs out, it's likely that no copies of it will have survived to pass into public domain