The copyright term for works owned by a corporation should be cut wayyyy down. I’m fine with a long copyright if it’s owned by a person, but corporations shouldn’t be able to lock down things that are older than like 20 years old. People shouldn’t be forced to buy a long discontinued console in order to legally play a old game.
Well then make it impossible to transfer the copyright. In most jurisdiction it’s not possible anyway. You can only licence it, not transfer.
I guess it might be difficult to figure out shared copyright in teamwork, but indie teams work just fine, and it’s still a better option than corpus sitting on a golden pile of IPs.
I like the idea of non-transferable copyrights a lot. That would make the “this is motivation for innovation / just protects inventors and artists” claim a lot more believable to me. I don’t think it should even be passable to descendents/“estates”.
And maybe also disallow “our employees’ inventions/creative work copyright automatically goes to the company” clauses. This would be… Waaaay more complicated to sort out, but still worth thinking about imo.
The copyright term for works owned by a corporation should be cut wayyyy down. I’m fine with a long copyright if it’s owned by a person, but corporations shouldn’t be able to lock down things that are older than like 20 years old. People shouldn’t be forced to buy a long discontinued console in order to legally play a old game.
With that strategy, we’d wind up with shell people holding copyrights on behalf of corporations.
Edit: Just wanted to add that I am definitely for the reduction of copyright duration, just that this particular solution has a somewhat amusing flaw.
Well then make it impossible to transfer the copyright. In most jurisdiction it’s not possible anyway. You can only licence it, not transfer.
I guess it might be difficult to figure out shared copyright in teamwork, but indie teams work just fine, and it’s still a better option than corpus sitting on a golden pile of IPs.
I like the idea of non-transferable copyrights a lot. That would make the “this is motivation for innovation / just protects inventors and artists” claim a lot more believable to me. I don’t think it should even be passable to descendents/“estates”.
And maybe also disallow “our employees’ inventions/creative work copyright automatically goes to the company” clauses. This would be… Waaaay more complicated to sort out, but still worth thinking about imo.