# Copyright Question **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 27, 2015, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question/711031 "2015-01-27T18:06:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2015, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question/711031/21 "2015-01-28T22:15:52Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > How too bad for you all that everything popular actually belongs to someone who created it. It would be fantastic if that were actually the limit–i.e., that copyright lasted for the lifetime of the author. But actually it’s death plus 70 years. That has nothing to do with creative control belonging to the author–instead, it’s about economic control belonging to the megacorporation that purchased the works. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question/711031/22 "2015-01-29T04:03:48Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > It would be fantastic if that were actually the limit–i.e., that copyright lasted for the lifetime of the author. But actually it’s death plus 70 years. That has nothing to do with creative control belonging to the author–instead, it’s about economic control belonging to the megacorporation that purchased the works. Or, say, the family of the creator. Or will all of your assets be piled in the driveway for free takeaway when you croak? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question/711031/23 "2015-01-29T04:18:44Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Or, say, the family of the creator. I just wanted you to clarify that your original argument was in fact bogus. Since you’ve acknowledged that this has little to do with creator’s rights and instead the rights of whatever party acquired the rights after the author’s death, we can address that appropriately. When you talk about indefinite copyright, do you really mean that or do you have something else in mind? Just as an example, the oldest continuously operated company is around 1500 years old. So it’s not at all a stretch that some party might hold an indefinite copyright for an equally long period. Is 1500 years reasonable, or were you thinking something shorter? ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question/711031/24 "2015-01-29T04:48:02Z")
I never said anything about indefinite copyright. My objection is to the legions who want things for free and find having to pay for someone else’s creative endeavors unfair. Most such have never created anything themselves, Reddit mashups, fanfic and artful turds aside, and assume all barriers to free use of IP are mega corp greed. The funniest cases are when such freebooters actually do create something desirable and turn into DRM Nazis. Seen it too many times to find much humor in it any more, though. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question/711031/25 "2015-01-29T05:10:57Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > I never said anything about indefinite copyright. Previously… > [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > What’s the justification for ownership and control of intellectual creations \*ever \*expiring That sounds like indefinite copyright to me. But apparently that’s not what you meant. You were very focused on control by the creator, so one possibility is that you really meant \*What’s the justification for ownership and control of intellectual creations \*ever _expiring within the author’s lifetime_? That would be a pretty good question but not very relevant to the current state of affairs because I’d still wonder where the extra 70 years came from. So please detail exactly what you’re arguing for. I hope we can dismiss your Redditor strawmen who want 5-year copyrights so they can pirate _Lord of the Rings_. The examples mentioned were works created by now long-dead artists. _Sherlock Holmes_ is an example of some works that just slipped in under the wire. It’s now in the public domain, and as a result we’ve had some nice modern interpretations of the work. All with no negative impact on Sir Doyle. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question/711031/26 "2015-01-29T05:46:00Z")
**AdamF** , you probably need to learn a lot more about the (very) basics of copyright before you start complaining about it. Here’s a hint though: if you’re going to learn up about copyright, do so from works on copyright. Not by reading the generally uninformed, shrill, ideologically blinded dribble disseminated by copyright haters. > [@AdamF](#): > > Should composers have rights to other people’s work? If the other peoples’ work comprises partly their talent and partly the composer’s talent, then the composer will have some rights and so will the other people. Seems fair to me. > [@](#): > > There is a lot of creative work that goes into turning words and notes into a performance. Sure there is. That’s why the system is such that if I compose something and you make a recording of or perform one of my works, you’ll get some of the profits resulting therefrom, and I’ll get some. > [@](#): > > Shouldn’t there be a line where the the new content overwhelms the initial inspiration? Yes. And that line exists. Anyone who tells you different is trying to mislead you in order to further their usually selfish and or ideologically driven agenda. > [@](#): > > Another example. JKR wrote Harry Potter and she (presumably) owns the copyright. Harry Potter was also translated into Czech. Aside from several names (and not even all of them), the translations shares no words with the English original. Yet JKR still owns the copyright. How is that fair? Sorry but this comment is just too silly for words. If JKR’s works comprised jumbles of random English words I could see your point but they don’t. The value in her works is in the story, the ideas, the characterisations etc. Not the mere words in isolation. If you were Czech would you buy a JKR book because it was in Czech, or because the story, characters etc were a translation of a book written by JKR? Copyright is about encouraging the production of valuable creative intangible works by allowing those who create those works to monetise their product. It’s not about filling the pockets who conduct (relatively) mechanistic re-processing of other people’s works. > [@AdamF](#): > > And this is where copyright overreaches. You could trademark “Xphid Pthmn” and thus protect your commercial interests. And this would permit anybody to create new stuff, to expand on your original idea, provided they did not earn money. By applying copyright to abstract ideas, we are stifling new creation. _That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works!_ This paragraph is so wrong on so many levels its hard to know where to start. Firstly, you don’t evidence having a first clue about trademark, which is for protection of indications of the commercial source of products or services. It has little to do with use of characters in stories. Secondly I am bemused by your notion that authors should “protect their commercial interests” in a character by trademark, while also allowing others to use that character freely (what exactly do you think the protection of commercial interests would comprise?). Thirdly you talk as if there is presently restriction on non-commercial use of characters which there isn’t. Fourthly you talk about copyright applying to abstract ideas, which it doesn’t. > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > No, she doesn’t. The translator holds the copyright to the translation. Maybe. IP rights can be dealt with (bought and sold) freely, so who knows who owns copyright in the translation? JKR could have employed someone to do it, or contracted with someone to do it on the basis that the rights in the translated work would be passed back to her. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question/711031/27 "2015-01-29T13:13:11Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > _That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works!_ I unfriend you. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question/711031/28 "2015-01-29T15:13:16Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > What’s the justification for ownership and control of intellectual creations \*ever \*expiring, except for the convenience of Reddit mashers, internet users and other pirates? [Copyright is not property](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html). It is a temporary monopoly granted for the purposes of promoting artistic works. The justification for limited terms is that culture belongs to us all. Enhancing the body of art and thought through derivative works is what culture _is_. Why shouldn’t recipes be copyrighted, or the cooking methods themselves? Why shouldn’t the CEO copyright the organizational structure of the company he built? Why shouldn’t we pay the descendents of Ancient Rome for using a derivative version their political structure? Why not pay royalties every time an accountant uses double entry bookkeeping? Frankly because we’ve only cherry picked a few types of creative works to grant monopolies to. And the reason we did that is because new ideas built on older ideas being passed freely between people is how we progress as a society. We would all be infinitely poorer if copyright terms were eternal or copyrights themselves were more inclusive. ---
**Author:** ![AdamF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/adamf/32/6246_2.png) [@AdamF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AdamF)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question/711031/29 "2015-01-29T17:44:38Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Sure you can. You can do just about anything you want in the comfort of your own home, including translate copyrighted works (or produce other kinds of of derivative works). There is no such blanket exception in the law, only the fair use. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question/711031/30 "2015-01-29T19:16:37Z")
> [@AdamF](#): > > There is no such blanket exception in the law, only the fair use. That sentence does not compute. There doesn’t need to be an exception. The clue is in the name _copy_right: copyright is the set of governing the legal _distribution_ of creative works. As such, it doesn’t apply when there is no distribution. Fanfiction or anything else is totally safe as long as you keep it to yourself. Fair use exceptions are a totally different thing; they come in to play when there is distribution of a derivative work, but that it falls into a few categories (parody, commentary) that are deemed to be non-offending (it has to meet some other criteria as well, such as needing a suitable fraction of original content). ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question/711031/31 "2015-01-29T19:30:05Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > [Copyright is not property](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html). Neither is the deed to your house, or the title to your car. I’m coming by to take both of the latters - you can keep the “copyrights.” > [@](#): > > It is a temporary monopoly granted for the purposes of promoting artistic works. The justification for limited terms is that culture belongs to us all. Enhancing the body of art and thought through derivative works is what culture _is_. This thread is jumbling together so many notions, some right, some wrong, some highly selective, that it’s bordering on nonsense. If you create something of duplicable IP, you own that IP through the copyright. The idea that a copyright expires through anything but a legal fiction is on a par with the idea that you only own your paid-for house until some specific date, at which time anyone who likes can cart it away. That said, I do not, never have, and did not say anything to the effect of supporting eternal copyright. I also question things like the extension from 50 to 70 years, a maneuver intended to primarily benefit Big Mouse. But objecting to at least lifetime of the creator plus a reasonable period for family and heirs to profit from that IP is the whining of talentless internet brats who think everything should be free. That Disney is gaming the whole system does not change the fundamental rights of millions upon millions of individual creators. That many copyrights end up owned by Big Eeeevil Inc or such does not invalidate the concept, either. If you didn’t create it, you can buy it on the creator/seller’s terms or do without. Most copyrighted items are available for very nominal sums, or even “for free” through museums and libraries and the like. The idea of granting cheapskate copyists the “right” to use and duplicate IP on vague “cultural property” grounds is undistilled bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question/711031/32 "2015-01-29T19:44:39Z")
If you were to build a house, it is your property. You can keep it as long as you live and your legatees can keep it forever with proper upkeep and tax payments. If you were to create a business, it is your property, and the same applies. Corporations can live forever; it is expected that they will outlive their founders. All forms of property live forever in theory. The only forms that don’t are copyrights and patents. They are considered to have such significance that it’s specifically listed in the Constitution that their contents be made freely available to the public after a certain number of years. This is amazing when you look at the total picture. The free market certainly does not deem that property of other sorts automatically becomes public. Only the government does. And only these two types of property. Trademarks are theoretically forever. Trade secrets are theoretically forever. The split is not between intellectual property and physical property. Property is property, period. (No matter what special interest activist groups say.) The natural tendency of the marketplace, long before modern legalities and isms were created, is that property belongs to the owner forever. All property. Therefore, whatever exceptions have been carved out to this natural law must indeed be justified, and to an extraordinary extent. They cannot simply be assumed. So take copyright. Why does it exist? It came into being as protection. Words were so easily stolen that creators had difficulty in making money from their works. Copyright gave them the ability to punish miscreants who stole their words. Stole is the right word. Theft is another. It is a crime to steal words and profit by them, and always has been since the first copyright law went into effect. Modern inversion of this to state that infringement is not theft and not even a crime is sheer nonsense. Once it was established in law that theft of words is a crime, how did it become possible to state that theft of words is not a crime if you wait long enough? Well, it was there from the beginning, in the Statute of Anne, but it hard to find the justifications for it. The law gave protection for 14 years, and if the author was alive could be extended for 14 more years. Is that the right number of years? That assumes that any limitation at all can be a right number. Let’s stipulate that a limitation is proper. Most people agree that the original need to protect the creator still exists. Therefore the right number should be one that keeps income flowing to the creator, the builder, and to the creator’s family and heirs for a period correlated with the interest of the public to purchase the work. Logically, it should be argued that copyright needs to be longer today than when first implemented because modern technology makes it far easier to republish works and make money off of them and also makes it far easier to find works one might be interested in reading. And that indeed has been the trend, with copyrights in most systems tending to life plus x years. All actual laws on copyright are based on commerce. They do not distinguish between type or content or gravity of works. You can argue that it is important to have the words of the founding fathers freely available for anyone to disseminate. It’s harder, and I would say impossible, to argue that popular entertainments need to be free to disseminate “because new ideas built on older ideas being passed freely between people is how we progress as a society.” If you want to make a derivative work, then you need to pay for the privilege. What possible counter-argument can you make to that? The Sherlock Holmes case is an especially poor example, because the Doyle estate had until last year’s court decision kept control over Homes for decades. If you wanted to write about Doyle’s characters you needed their permission. And why not? Yes, Holmes was created in the 19th century but obviously is still a valuable merchantable figure. Why shouldn’t the current owners be fairly compensated for his use? How does not doing so add to our progress as a society? Maybe we should change trademark law to allow it to work the way the OP wants. Trademarks are forever. They would give far more protection to creators than they currently have. Cases are more readily made, convictions easier to get, and penalties can be higher. It would be wonderfully ironic if he got want he thinks he want. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question/711031/33 "2015-01-29T19:51:22Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > You can argue that it is important to have the words of the founding fathers freely available for anyone to disseminate. Something close to all government publications, from the Constitution down to “How to Check Your Home for Lead Paint,” are public domain or open-copyright. Which is as it should be, IMHO. And any creator is free to place his or her work in the public domain if they feel that’s a better place than within copyright protections. The copyright bashers look pretty silly floating in midair with no legs to stand on, don’t they? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question/711031/34 "2015-01-29T20:20:34Z")
> [@Doug\_K](#): > > Exactly. For the most part the people who complain that “copyrights last too long” aren’t wanting to copy 50+ year old works, they want to copy recent works that are currently popular. Example, please? (Of the correlation.) I can understand copyright not expiring until some point after the death of the author, so the author’s heirs can get benefit. But there should be a limit. Would society be really better off if Tolstoy’s heirs, wherever they might be, controlled publication of War and Peace? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question/711031/35 "2015-01-29T21:03:58Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Example, please? (Of the correlation.) I can understand copyright not expiring until some point after the death of the author, so the author’s heirs can get benefit. But there should be a limit. Would society be really better off if Tolstoy’s heirs, wherever they might be, controlled publication of War and Peace? Would society be any worse off? It’s not as if there’s a shortage of Fitzgerald or Hemingway works available, even though they’re mostly still under copyright. Why should there be a limit? I always believed myself that there should be. But the crazed arguments from the other side have made me rethink that. How do you justify a limit in a modern world in which everything is findable forever? Why shouldn’t a part of my purchase money go to Tolstoy’s heirs just as it goes to Hemingway or Fitzgeralds’s heirs? I can’t come up with a coherent argument against it. Can you provide one? That’s a serious question. How do you justify the permanence of trademarks but a limit on copyright? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question/711031/36 "2015-01-29T21:07:49Z")
Extension of copyright after the death of the author is a key element of allowing creators to make money off their works. If a company is going to buy the rights to distribute a work, they need to know that those rights are going to persist – they’re not going to just evaporate because the creator happened to get hit by a bus. So extension of copyright after death is not merely a matter of providing for the heirs of a creator. By reducing uncertainty over when the copyright will expire, _it increases its market value for the creator while he is still alive_. I’d like to see a system of indefinite copyright with a rising scale of fees after a certain point. Say copyright is automatic for the first 30 years after the creation of a work. After that, if you want to retain control of a work you need to register it and pay a yearly fee. The fee means that copyright holders would have an incentive to continue to widely distribute older works to earn money to pay off the fee. Older works that can’t sell enough to pay off their yearly fee would quickly fall into the public domain. Win-win. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question/711031/37 "2015-01-29T21:27:52Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > This is amazing when you look at the total picture. What’s far more astonishing is the idea that words can be property at all. Physical property is intuitive to everyone, and in fact even to animals, which can exert exclusive control over their territory. They do not have the benefit of a government to enforce the boundaries on their territory, and so instead they come to ad-hoc arrangements with their neighbors, usually backed with the threat of physical force. Government-backed property is no different except that we’ve subcontracted the use of force. Intellectual property is a human invention. There’s no natural or intuitive sense in which it exists. No model in normal human behavior in how such property “should” work. On the contrary: it directly opposes human nature, in which information of all kinds is freely disseminated. This is not theft, because theft involves depriving an individual of the thing which is stolen. That’s not possible with information. I certainly believe that a limited form of copyright is a good idea in modern society. But only as a mutually beneficial exchange: on the condition that you eventually release your works to the benefit of all, we grant a _temporary_ monopoly on those works. The alternative is not unlimited copyright, but no copyright at all. If you wish to maintain exclusive control over your works forever, you keep them to yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question/711031/38 "2015-01-29T21:33:45Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > I unfriend you. Harsh. But fair. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question/711031/39 "2015-01-29T21:40:40Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Logically, it should be argued that copyright needs to be longer today than when first implemented because modern technology makes it far easier to republish works and make money off of them and also makes it far easier to find works one might be interested in reading. I would argue the precise opposite. The purpose of copyright, especially as enshrined in the US Constitution, is to encourage creators to share their works by giving them a period of time in which to make money from them via exclusive control. In the past, with slow presses, horse- or ship-based delivery, and in general a very low rate of dissemination, 28 years was sufficient. Today, dissemination is virtually instant, and achieving the same level of public awareness is possible within just a few years. There is no longer a need to pad out the limit to account for slow forms of information delivery. Copyright has gotten ever-longer not because of a natural trend but because rich individuals and corporations have lobbied for it. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question/711031/40 "2015-01-29T21:58:46Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Would society be any worse off? It’s not as if there’s a shortage of Fitzgerald or Hemingway works available, even though they’re mostly still under copyright. > > Why should there be a limit? I always believed myself that there should be. But the crazed arguments from the other side have made me rethink that. How do you justify a limit in a modern world in which everything is findable forever? Why shouldn’t a part of my purchase money go to Tolstoy’s heirs just as it goes to Hemingway or Fitzgeralds’s heirs? I can’t come up with a coherent argument against it. Can you provide one? That’s a serious question. How do you justify the permanence of trademarks but a limit on copyright? The works may be easy to find, but the copyright owner may not be. A very few published works are so famous that we can expect someone to own them forever. The vast majority of published work is out of print. If a piece suddenly becomes relevant - perhaps by being prescient, or serving as the inspiration for another, or for any number of reasons, how long should it be hidden from the public due to not being able to find the copyright holder? The ability to cheaply distribute public domain e-books makes this even more important, since publishing an interesting public domain book might be prohibitive, but not publishing a public domain e-book. Even more so with the work by Google. **Amateur Barbarian** mentioned the issue of lost work. If we went back to the old method where copyrights had to be explicitly renewed, this problem would mostly go away. But I can understand that renewal was found to be burdensome on creators. I have a fascinating DVD set of commercials from before 1964. The owners of these commercials obviously did not renew the copyrights, since they are out of date and some of the products no longer exist. But this kind of collection for commercials after 1964 would be impossible to put together today, even if the copyright holders would be willing to give rights for a nominal sum. Finding them would be a nightmare. [Wiki entry on copyright renewal.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_renewal) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question/711031.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-question/711031.md?page=3)