re: #91 Belafon

Copyright was meant to be a temporary thing to encourage people to create. When it goes on for so long that it limits other people creating (most creations are derivatives), it’s running counter to its purpose. We don’t keep patents for that long.

Again, for me it comes down to allowing the original artist to control derivative works at least during his life time. And if the works continue to be published, then I don’t have much of a problem with it. Moreover, given the ease at which things can be reproduced today (if you have a pdf copy of a writing, you can sell it online for ibooks or kindle), I think there needs to be strong protections for artists.

I’d also argue that, at least with respect to literary works, most creations are original not derivatives. There may be only a handful of themes in stories, but characters and plots tend to be unique to the author.