Elton John backs Paul McCartney in criticising proposed overhaul of UK copyright | Hacker News Reader

Elton John backs Paul McCartney in criticising proposed overhaul of UK copyright

theguardian.com

2 pointsbelter5 comments

I've always hated the concept of copyright in the sense that nobody should be making money off work they did - for example - 30 years ago.

Nobody else has that luxury. They have to drag their ass out of bed and justify their existence every day...

Lots of people have that luxury. They get some money, put it in the bank, and get paid for it. Even better, they put it in the stock market, and make even more money, solely for the privilege of having money. They don't even need to put in any effort in the trading; they can just pay somebody to do it, for a small fee.

Retirees do it. Some people are born into it. A lot more people could, if they chose to: billionaires work because they like the work, not because they need to "justify their existence".

Personally, I'd be all for paying writers a salary to write, and then have their works put into the public domain. Pay 'em enough that they can eventually afford to retire. But there are a few bugs to work out in figuring out where the money should come from and where it should go to, if we're giving the books away for free.

I think copyright should be changed generally here, there's no reason a drawing of a mouse should stay copyrighted for decades after it's original creator passed away .

Imagine if copyright at works went into the public domain after 25 years. So many books, albums, and games are in this bizarre limbo where the rights holders may no longer exist, but they can't be freely distributed due to copyright laws. Or even if the rights holder does exist, they might have no interest in releasing the material due to current creative differences ( or licensing, tons of video games based around other intellectual property will never be released again).

If it's just a drawing of a mouse, then anyone can create the same value by just drawing a different mouse. Of course, you can't because of the millions of dollars that have been pumped into that particular mouse. That investment is what the copyright laws are protecting.

I would say that if something doesn't get published when there is a guaranteed, government-backed monopoly in place, then it's even less likely to get published when there isn't.

I don't think it's common for stuff to go unpublished when no one can find the copyright holder. In that case, just publish it and wait to see who complains.

I guarantee monopoly is fine, but does JK Rowling really need another billion dollars off of book she wrote 30 years ago. She would be just fine if Harry Potter was public domain after a modest 25 years. Keep in mind that would only apply to the original book, if Warner Brothers makes another movie that would be under its own 25-year copyright. What we have now is this weird system where so much of our collective heritage is basically walled off.

Mega Corp doesn't like a movie they made 40 years ago, so now no one can ever watch it again?

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