• ninjan@lemmy.mildgrim.com
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    11 months ago

    In my opinion LotR should’ve already entered the public domain but thanks to Disney well have to wait until 2044 for that.

    • hh93@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      Can’t have the already well-off children go without their steady income that they didn’t have to work for…

      • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        Well how else are we supposed to encourage people to be related to people who develop intellectual property? It makes sense from a neponomic standpoint.

        • sqgl@beehaw.org
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          11 months ago

          Believe it or not, some people do work extra hard in order to ensure their descendants have an easy life. I’m not weighing in on whether that is wise or not but it is definitely a thing.

      • frezik@midwest.social
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        11 months ago

        The books go into public domain in 20 years. Now that Christopher Tolkien is out of the way (who tended to block a lot of stuff, for better or worse) , the current heirs want as much out of it as they can.

        20 years might sound like a lot, but that’s about as much time as between the Peter Jackson movies and now.

      • BadlyDrawnRhino @aussie.zone
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        11 months ago

        I think an argument could be made to set it to the date of death of the author. I agree with the other guy that it should only apply to commercial works though.

        I also don’t think that the copyright should be transferable. The trading of ideas is an absurd concept to me. But then us humans do a lot of absurd things so I guess it’s just par for the course.

        • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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          11 months ago

          People have a right to culture. If you grew up with a story, it’s yours now, no matter how dead the author isn’t. Past works are the foundation for everything you can make.

          And if the purpose of copyright is not to encourage new works, burn it to the ground.

          • BadlyDrawnRhino @aussie.zone
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            11 months ago

            That’s an oversimplification. All works are derivative to some extent. There’s a huge difference between taking inspiration from something, to taking the characters and setting from something. Particularly if you’re intending to make a profit.

            If an author makes something that a large number of people enjoy, why shouldn’t they be able to make money off it for the rest of their life? Why exactly should an individual give up the rights to their creation simply so that someone else can use their characters and their worlds?

            To be clear, I’m talking solely on an individual level. I think the system we have where a corporation can own an idea is very broken. I’m also talking about this from a perspective of the world we currently live in. In an ideal world where money wasn’t the endgame for survival, ideas would flow more freely and nobody would need to care. But that’s not the world we live in.

            • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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              11 months ago

              You can’t sell something to a million people and still own it.

              Copyright is a gift, from us to them, to encourage new works, for us. Why would that mean some old fart gets to stop people making new stories for the characters they grew up with? They’re our characters, now. We bought them. That’s what the money was for.

              And if thirty years of revenue with zero additional labor required somehow isn’t enough - oh well.

              Can you imagine making your argument for any other industry? Why in the name of god would art be the place where doing real good one time is a ticket to retirement? Not farming, not medicine, not engineering. Homeboy wrote a song once, so he gets to ride the gravy train until he fuckin’ dies.

              • Auli@lemmy.ca
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                11 months ago

                Your buying the stories not the ownership of all the ideas.

                • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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                  11 months ago

                  Word salad.

                  Again: the explicit purpose of copyright is to provide the public with new works. After a fixed limited time, all works belong in the public domain. If you want copyright to be anything but that, I would rather not do copyright at all.

                  It’s not a right. That name is a lie. It’s a monetary incentive. And once someone’s made their money, that’s that. It’s ours now. The deal worked.

      • Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.world
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        11 months ago

        And for commercial purposes only. If you’re not making money off of it, you should be able to use it however you want.