JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Songwriter Message Forum Songwriter payouts - Vanity article

I really think in a few years we should end copyrights lasting beyond the life of the last living author. The only exceptions I would offer is 5 years for new works discovered after death with proceeds going to immediate heirs (Spouse, Children, Siblings or Parents only). So if 1000 new Prince songs become available, his heirs would get 5 years of copyright ownership then on to public domain.

I think films should be 10 years. Images and other individual works would also be life plus 5 for new works released after death. That might cause heirs to release entire collections after someone dies. The idea is that our culture NEEDS the content added into free use for the public good. We need way more focus on the arts and we need new works by living artists as well as new works based on older works for society as a whole. I know most commercially successful people would be against this, but what we have now is a disaster. So many works become orphaned and will NEVER be released to the public because of fear of legal action should a rightful owner pop up based on our destructive and archaic laws. It isn't worth even an occasional lawsuit to make older works public domain when litigious jerks abuse the system. Disney is to blame for the unreasonable extensions. If you want all our cr5eations to be A.I., then keep human creations off limits for 70-80 or whatever number of years until they are forgotten. It happens to millions of creative works every year. They are just lost forever.