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Comment by tzs | Hacker News Reader

What would be the point of having copyright at all if the term was that short?

If an indie artists created a song a studio could immediately remake the song and sell it before the artists had any distribution in place. 2 to 3 years should give the artists the opportunity to make some profit from his music.

What about artists whose songs take more than 2 or 3 years to become popular? You don't think an artist should get anything if he writes a song that does so-so until it is featured a few years later in a hit movie and then the song becomes a hit?

Or what about people who write books? Shouldn't they get money if their book is turned into a movie? With only 2 to 3 years of copyright, many books will go public domain long before a major movie can be put together.

I think it deserves mention that without copyright, a studio doesn't even need to remake a song, they could rather simply and legally re-release the original, now public-domain song.

Hardly. If the length were 2-3 years then the studios could (and probably would) remake songs by indie artists which didn't become popular in the first 2-3 years.

Studios would spend their own money remaking songs that had failed to garner interest in the first place? Not only does that seem like a way to make a lot of flops, but if the original flopped for some reason that's correctable by someone else in order to make a hit, then isn't it a win for everyone for there to be a hit remake (the original writer/artist at least gets recognition that they would otherwise not have had)?

I have more of a problem with the fact that it could happen.

Besides, you really don't think there would be a market for taking less well known songs, rebranding them to make them palatable to the masses, and selling that? I can't imagine that if it were completely legal, they wouldn't try.

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