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Comment by anothernewdude | Hacker News Reader

I mean, copyright shouldn't be the infinite years it is currently. This used to belong to everyone collectively, and then publishers (not writers) decided they owned it.

Another big interest coming along now to decide that now they own it?

I don't care. Give people back their culture. 5 years of copyright is sufficient.

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> I don't care. Give people back their culture. 5 years of copyright is sufficient.

This kind of attitude makes me a bit angry. I assume most people don't really understand how little most authors earn from their books. Same for most musicians, most indie app developers... artists...

If we keep treating copyright with so much disdain, there won't be any "culture" being created any more. It's barely a sustainable career as it is.

I wonder if it's because most people on HN are salaried employees, creating copyrighted work for someone else...

If you've spent any time as an individual creator, trying to make a living from your own copyrighted creations, I think you'd have a different attitude.

> I assume most people don't really understand how little most authors earn from their books. Same for most musicians, most indie app developers... artists...

But they don’t make so little because of too little copyright. They do so for a variety of reasons, including:

- people simply don’t buy their things, whether or not there is copyright on something with zero sales will not improve matter.

- strong copyright does not help authors/artists when the publishers require them to sign it all over. It’s like giving your bullied kid more lunch money, no amount will be enough if the bully simply takes it all.

Record companies are the ones that make most of the money off copyright. Artists profit from everything else (e.g., performances, sponsorships, merch, etc) which would be mostly unaffected by a shortened (maybe 10-20, not 5 years) copyright duration.

While it may be less common at this point, most Major Label recording contracts (for unproven acts) had 100% merch rights written into them throughout 80's and 90's.

100% -> the label (just to be clear)

true. when it comes to technology, enjoy your 5 years of premium production. after that, you better have a good product, or the competition will eat you alive. as for creative works like books or movies or music, i'd go with 10 because it is more subjective type of work, creative instead of inventive and not technical and usually produced by individuals and not companies.

Following the same logic, everything you have archived, your wealth, your gadgets, your house, your car should belong to everybody after 10 years. Or do you want that only to apply to artists who (99% of them) dont make a lot of money anyways?

None of those are intellectual "property".

So 99% percent of artists won't notice the difference? You've convinced me. This is a fantastic idea.

I agree that copyright has gotten out of hand, but 5 years is way too short. I can't imagine that anyone is going to spend YEARS writing a book, only for it to be public domain within 5. There needs to be commercial incentive for people to put in the effort to create things.

5 years is incredibly long. Sales are front heavy.

> I can't imagine that anyone is going to spend YEARS writing a book.

Then you can't imagine why people write.

> There needs to be commercial incentive for people to put in the effort to create things.

No wonder you can't imagine why people write. How on earth did humanity invent writing before capitalism?

> 5 years is incredibly long. Sales are front heavy.

No. Look at A Game of Thrones as an example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Game_of_Thrones

It was published in 1996. It became a bestseller in 2011 after the worldwide promotion it got due to the TV series.

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