re: #228 Fat Bastard Vegetarian

And that’s okay.

Don’t let my stance on this make you think I don’t like copyright btw, I am firmly in support of them. Pirate Bay, Kazaa and the like are scum of the earth to me, an artist owns the rights to their works, and the right to profit therefrom. After the artist’s death however there should be limits for the public good, and btw, for the artist’s posterity.

Beethoven is public domain, Shakespeare is public domain, Robert Louis Stevenson is public domain. Others can expand and embellish their great works, and they can be published for free in perpetuity. That’s a good thing, not a bad thing. At some point copy right must be limited, and I think they’ve gone too far in the recent extensions.

There’s an SF/Fantasy author that I love named Roger Zelazny - hollywood will never make a movie of his works, because the first was a flop, and they are too damned hard to make into a movie. It would take someone who loves the works to make that movie right. The only way that’s going to happen is if they get it for free. In another 60 years his works will largely be forgotten, and it’s highly unlikely that anyone will make the movies then. If the copyright were expired in 20 yrs from his death, the movie might be made…
So copy right expiring can be a good thing in some cases.