It’s one thing that copyright/IP is such a matter of debate in the creative world, but a whole new layer is added onto that when people say that it only matters for a certain amount of time. You may have read all those articles a few months ago, the same ones telling us about how Mickey Mouse (technically Steamboat Willy) is now up for grabs 95 years after his creation.
There are those who say “as long as it’s popular it shouldn’t be pirated”, those who say “as long as the creator is around”, those who don’t apply a set frame, etc. I’ve even seen people say they wouldn’t dare redistribute paleolithic paintings because it was their spark on the world. What philosophy of statutes of limitation make the most sense to you when it comes to creative work?
I’m in favor of abolishing IP altogether, along with all Private Property.
I recall reading somewhere that less than 5 years is the average time it takes for most individual works to earn the majority of its value, tapering off from there
So I’d probably do a 2-tier system:
Tier 1: independent civilians. After 5 years any normal civvie can take your work and use it without your permission to do whatever they want with it
Tier 2: Companies. Life of the author. For as long as the original creator is alive no company can ever use their work without permission
Life time of person who made it. Nothing more, nothing less
Granted it’s an honorability rather than abstinence thing, but why expire it?
IMO it is a matter of who wants to use said copyrighted material, for what purpose, and to what end. And not necessarily over some period of time. Two licenses I use.
GNU Public License version 3, GPLv3. Strong copyleft. The right to copy is left to the end user. You can do whatever the hell you want with the code provided you pay forward the four basic freedoms granted to you under the license. I.e. You can view the source code, you can modify the source code, you can distribute the source code, and you can distribute your modifications.
If you do not pay forward the four basic freedoms, you are in violation of the license. This is why google, microsoft, etc. WILL NOT use gplv3 code. They will never grant the four freedoms downstream, and they don’t need the legal liability. They have code scanners that look for gplv3 code, and as a developer you use it, they will fire you on the spot. Serious shit.
The second is Creative Commons, CC. There are several variations based on if you can create derivative work, if you can make money off of it, if you need to credit upstream contributors. The one I use is CC-BY-NC-SA. That’s you can create derivative works and distribute them provided you: attribute pervious authors i.e. who is it BY, you can’t sell it i.e. it is Non Commercial, and since this was shared with you, you must Share Alike.
All that said, these are in a different category than commercial licenses, so restrictions may apply.
Also. “Intellectual property” is bullshit. It’s incredibly ambigous and doesn’t hold legal value itself. There are three things that do. Copyright, patent, and trademark. Each wrought with their own issues, but the broad concept of intellectual property only exists soley exploit those who don’t know better.
these are not totally serious thoughts, altho they reflect my kind of feelings about it
but IP should be periodically put to a vote, maybe a year or two after a major release, in which the public decides if they should retain ownership of the IP
if not? it’s released into public domain. obviously the original company / creator can still do something with it, but others can, as well. but if they do a good job keeping people happy with it, they can keep it
obviously this has some problems, mostly about constantly polling people and probably only dealing with IP that’s popular enough
but the idea gives me some deep satisfaction after seeing some companies ruin their IP, and i like the idea of consumers having some power to punish them for being shitty lol