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As a photographer, the idea of the copyright system being thrown away is horrifying to me. I've already seen my work appear on book covers and all over the internet with zero compensation for my time, energy, skills, or the money I spent making the images. This stuff happening is already morally shrugged off by society, God knows how bad it would be if it was also legal.

Copyright should be abolished entirely. But a reasonable length if it needs to exist is maybe 20 years. Think about stuff from 20 years ago. Movies like the first matrix, or games like the original super mario bros. These are classics, no longer something the creators rely on for profit, yet shape our culture.

Copyright is used to harm culture for the sake of profit. An absurdly long copyright period can only harm society for the sake of shareholder profits. Ideally, things should enter the public domain at some point, and ideally at a time where the cultural impact can be felt. Anyone who disagrees with this should believe that disney is an illegitimate business, as almost all of their IPs are things originally in the public domain.

If copyright as it is today existed back when disney started, we wouldn't have beloved disney classics.

I think it should be a thing, but 2 years is enough

I think it should exist, however if a copyright holder isn't deriving profit from their copyright and haven't for say 5 or 10 years then it should expire. Patented processes are a whole different thing, but yeah that is where I stand.

Maybe 25 years? But there should be an extra provision that the work must remain publicly available for purchase in like form and cost or else the copyright is voided (with a one year grace period to resolve production issues.)

I don't think any individual opinion on whether or not copyright should exist is or should be seen to be relevant to anything.

The simple fact of the matter is that the concept exists. We're not going to be able to magically make it disappear, so saying that it shouldn't exist is incoherent at best.

That said, I can certainly see why people want to see it disappear - because it's basically become an easily abused way for rent-seeking scumbags to profit from somebody else's work.

I think the fundamental problem isn't that it exists, but that it's treated as a criminal matter. Up until fairly recently, it was a purely civil matter. Anyone who was so inclined could file suit against someone they believed had infringed on their copyright, and if they could prove that they legitimately had the copyright AND that they had suffered concrete losses, they could collect damages.

However, at the behest of enormous corporations like Disney who bought enough influence to make it happen, copyright was changed into a criminal matter, so the corporations offloaded the cost of enforcement and no longer have any need to prove that they've suffered any actual loss - the purported copyright violation in and of itself is sufficient.

I think that the creator of a work very obviously has a greater right to it than anyone else can possibly have. And the alternative would be to proactively decree that the creator of a work could NOT claim ownership of it and could NOT seek redress for any losses incurred through someone else's unapproved use of their creation, and that, IMO, is unconscionable.

So I support the idea in principle.

But in my perfect world, it would be a wholly civil matter, and the specifics would depend on the specific case. Broadly, I think that the copyright holder should and likely could only seek redress for specific, demonstrable losses.

And briefly, regarding the term, I don't think it should be fixed. I think it should be judged relative to the individual case.

So if, for instance, someone was seeking damages for the unapproved use of a creation that is wholly obsolete and otherwise entirely out of the public eye, they should have a much more difficult time claiming a loss, even if the thing is only, say, five years old. And on the other hand, if the thing in question is something that the creator is still regularly and successfully marketing, they should have an easier time claiming a loss, even if it's, say, 70 years old.

Like capitalism in general, I believe copyright is a good thing in moderation. When those who profit from something want ever more, and those who rule let them, that's when things go sour.

As a software engineer, well, it would be remarkably difficult for my industry to pay its workers if copyright didn't exist.

I do think copyright is essential for protecting smaller artists. However, it has been corrupted by big corporations into something to gain complete control over their creations, which is essentially the exact opposite of its purpose. With this in mind, I would propose two changes:

1: Change copyright to only apply for 10 years. Most smaller creators would have a chance to build up a community by that time, and it lessens the amount of time a corporation can maintain a stranglehold on their IPs.

2: Make a clause that allows for derivative works, as long as the source material is credited clearly and at the beginning of the work. This means works like fangames, fanarts, and fanfictions are all fully legal, and don't have to worry about corporate stranglehold, and also benefits smaller creators, as these works can essentially serve as free advertising.

This obviously isn't a perfect solution, but its almost certainly far better than what we have now, and restores copyright back to its original intended purpose.

25 to 45 years seems like plenty for most of the profit of a work. Maybe 5 years with an option to renew it by the author using the copyright with maximum of 50 years or so. That way abandoned IP or works no longer being published can be used sooner but people who have a series or keeps selling a work can keep control of the IP.

The life of the author plus 70 years bs we have now is insane. It use to be 14 years originally then was 28 years for a good while.

As long as copyright is protecting the inventory so that he can make a profit on his work to develop the thing, yes absolutely. 30 years.

Death of the creator, or in the case of a multi-creator work or a corporation (as in the case of TV and film), death of the last living participant in creation. (In the latter case, corporations would try to assign "creator" status to the youngest baby they can get their hands on in the hopes of making the copyright last 70+ years, but there would have to be adjudication to determine actual involvment.)

A flat 20 years for everything. Individuals, companies, patents, trademarks, everything.

That's an interesting question, I'm not happy with the implementation of the copyright nowadays but I haven't the answer of the right implementation. The property over the ideas is not something I like but if you've been working on some IP, would it be fair if other person takes your idea and work and gets benefits using it?