The purpose of copyright should be to allow authors to live off their work, and the purpose of its expiration should be to allow society at large to benefit from it.

Given that, I’d favor a return to the origins of the Statute of Anne, so something like 15 years with the chance of a single extension of 15 more years. Only the original author can apply for the extension, but the rights don’t expire with their death and can be sold or inherited.

This would give people 30 years to earn money from their work, and if a business buys them they get at most 15 years to use them, without the chance of hoarding them for too long.

I guess the ideal duration could be more or less than that, but I feel a good rule of thumb is: if some work came out during my lifetime, I have a reasonable chance to see it become part of the public domain while I’m still alive (and potentially use it to make something else from it).

A great many lawyers have earned eye watering fortunes arguing the case on behalf of their clients and thus far “fair” does not appear to be a consideration.

Ultimately I think that your question is more about the fabric of society despite the framing in terms of copyright.

The original version of the USA copyright law had it right:

United States copyright law traces its lineage back to the British Statute of Anne, which influenced the first U.S. federal copyright law, the Copyright Act of 1790. The length of copyright established by the Founding Fathers was 14 years with an option to renew it once for 14 more.

After a quarter century, if it’s still relevant, then it’s part of community culture and everybody should be able to have access to it.

0 seconds. Abolish the concept completely.

15 years default, with the option to apply for a 5-year extension twice. In order for an extension to be granted, the copyright holder must continue to make the work readily accessible.

In addition, I would have a clause where if a work is not being made readily accessible even in those first 15 years (delisted from digital storefronts or streaming services, software not compatible with modern platforms, or 5+ years out of print for physical media), copyright is considered to be in a weaker state where piracy for personal/noncommercial use is legal.

My personal opinion is that copyright should be strong in a manner inversely proportional to the size of the entity that controls that copyright. There should also be an extensive amount of work put into patching circumventions of this law.

If I personally make a little cartoon cat guy and make it big but I’m still just like one person making animations by hand I should be able to keep copyright on my creation pretty much until I die.

If I’m a multi-million dollar corporation the copyright protection should fall off dramatically. Corporations can still make a big profit on things they just can’t be the sole proprietor forever.

I’m not sure what exact figures would be fair but you get the principal, smaller entity longer protection. Basically the opposite of whatever the fuck Disney is doing to the law.

I could also see longer terms for individuals over corporations: ie. copyright protecting the creator/artist rather than the publisher

I know that not everyone will agree with me but I’ve always believed that it’s less of a length of time and more of it being that the copyright should expire as soon as you’re no longer producing copies of, maintaining and/or selling it. I believe this because, from my prospective, if you’re no longer providing a copyrighted piece of media, then you’re clearly no longer looking to profit off of it, or at least keep it publicly available, and therefor don’t need it to be copyrighted anymore.

fair

18 to 21 years: the time a person born today when I register the work, will have to wait until becoming an adult member of society who ought to be able to work for society and thus be able to consume my creation on their own terms, not constrained by a “mandate” or a “license”.

It depends on the type of work. The proper length of copyright for books or films should long, about 20 to 25 years, because they remain relevant for longer. But software should be shorter, about 7 years.

The purpose of copyright is to enhance the public domain, not to create a business model. How well is 75 year old software enhancing the public domain? If any software has even entered the public domain through copyright expiration, what use is that software today? At best it’s an archeological curiosity, but more likely it’s no use at all.

For an independent artist in the US, I think their lifetime +25 years & 9 months.

It’s something they made, they created it, they deserve to profit off of it.

Why the +25 years & 9 months?

Independent artists may not have a more traditional retirement plan with a pension/401k, health benefits, etc. They work for themselves, their income can be inconsistent, sometimes their work may not become popular until years later or even after they pass away.

But that work is how they’re providing for their family, their children’s care and college funds and such, funeral expenses, help their spouses along after they pass, etc.

In the US you can usually stay on your parents healthcare up until 26, so I think it’s fair that we should allow their family to profit off that copyright for that long after their death.

If I were an artist, and immediately after getting my wife pregnant, keeled over dead, I’d want to know that I’ve left behind something that will help them along at least a bit hopefully at least until my kid is hopefully old enough to stand on their own since.

And sure, not every artist is going to be leaving behind a pregnant wife, but most people are going to have some sort of family who are going to be stuck with funeral expenses and other legal bullshit to sort out, and I think that 25ish years is a reasonable enough timeframe to keep the copyright tied up before releasing it to the public domain.

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For works created by/for a company (or owned by one if an individual creator sold it to them,) I think it can get a little murkier.

A lot of people cite the old 14 years + one 14 year extension that was the original US copyright law. And I get it, that sounds reasonable enough I guess.

But a lot of things have changed since then, companies are bigger, things like video games exist now that didn’t back then, and some things have gotten a lot more complex.

Let’s look at the MCU, just the main movies have come out over 18 years and is still going for the foreseeable future, and with spider man and Deadpool sort of tying in some of the pre-MCU movies into the shared multiverse, you can even argue that it’s 26 years at this point. Hell, Marvel and DC have been doing their thing since the 30s. New Star Trek stuff has been trickling out since the 60s. Mario first appeared in Donkey Kong 45 years ago. Skyrim came out in 2011, and the next elder scrolls game is still probably years away. We just didn’t have franchises like we do now back in 1790, I think it’s fair that the laws should reflect in some way how long-lived some franchises can last now.

I think it might be fair at this point to allow a company to hold copyright on something indefinitely (please put away your torches and pitchforks) but

1. They need to renew the copyright every 5 years. If they don’t it automatically enters the public domain.
2. In order to renew it they must make that copyrighted property available to the average person. If I can’t go out and buy a copy of a specific movie, game, book, etc. then they don’t get to sit on the copyright for it.
3. After maybe 50 years (I’m flexible on that, but 50 is a nice, round number,) as long as they’ve kept up with the renewals, they still own it, and other people/companies have to pay them to use it for commercial purposes, but they no longer control it, after that point they can no longer deny anyone the right to use that media as long as they’re paid for it, and they don’t get to set the price, that becomes a fixed rate set by the government. A 50+ year old movie (or whatever) costs $X if you want to make and sell copies of it, $Y to create and sell merchandise based on it, $Z to show it in a theater, etc. and those prices will be kept reasonable.
4. Also, after 50 years, non-commercial use opens up. You can use it to your heart’s content however you want, copying it, sharing it, posting it online, whatever you want, as long as you’re not making a profit on it.

Bridging parts 4 and 5. Let’s say you wanted to post a whole movie on YouTube. If your channel isn’t monetized you’re totally in the clear, you can do that. However YouTube might still make a profit off of it being there due to ads and such. So YouTube can either

A. Not allow copyrighted material in their TOS, and must take it down when (and only when) requested by the copyright holder.
Or
B. Choose to pay the appropriate licensing fee to stream that copyrighted material, which again would be a fixed, reasonably low rate set by the government. It might be worth it to them to pay that fee because it means increased traffic to their site.

If your channel is monetized, you would have to pay that fee. Again, these fees are going to be fixed and kept fairly low. What those fees are is probably going to depend on how it’s used. Using, let’s say, a clip that’s 30 seconds or less of something in another video might be a one time fee of $5, but if you’re posting the whole movie, maybe that deserves some percentage of what you earn from those views unless YouTube decides to pay for the streaming license for that movie (if you then owe anything to YouTube for that and how much would be part of whatever monetization agreement you have with YouTube)

Deciding exactly what those licensing fees for 50+ year old media should be is well outside of my pay-grade.

EDIT: There’s a lot more to intellectual property than just copyright, trademarks, patents, etc. so this is really only scraping the surface, but hopefully this kind of shows where my head is at with these kinds of matters.

I’m ok with the life of the author and then some. After all, if I create something I don’t want any asshole doing whatever with it a few years later.

What I’m not ok is companies owning anything, that is the part I would severely hack.

I would also review what is fair use.

Copyrights should expire five years from the date of initial publication at most.

The copyright should be nontransferable and exclusively held by the original creator/creators.

The creator(s) should be the people who substantively contributed to the work. Monetary contributions are not substantive.

The rights holder should be an actual human person(s) not a corporate entity.

The copyrighted work should enter public domain immediately upon the death of the last living rights holder or upon the expiration of the copyright. Whichever happens first.

Any decision to license the work should require the unanimous consent of all living rights holders.

If a rights holder is rendered incapable of making licensing decisions under suspicious circumstances all licenses to the work are immediately voided and no new licenses can be issued.

100 years. Covers the lifespan of the author plus wiggle room.

If you make something unique, you should be able to reap the rewards of doing so for at least the duration of your lifetime. When you think about things that were created 100 years ago, it’s clear that a century is enough time for things to have their moment in culture and also to be capitalized on.

25 years isn’t even enough to cover music that bands recorded in the late 90s, so that seems very unreasonable to me.

Six fucking months. Make your money, own your IP. Then let competitors/fans/copyslop have its way with it. I don’t care about the profit lifetime, I don’t give a single shit. Lawsuits are too damaging to let them be levied against random people and companies who aren’t at fault. If it’s too confusing to the consumer then maybe you can copyright the name of it or the creators name until there’s no longer significant work being done on the original IP so it’s not so easy to trick consumers or something.

Six months until someone can sell their version of Taylor Swift’s most recent hit word for word and note for note. Six months until you can make money off of your animated show Doc and Marty. Six months before you can cash in on your book “Hairy Pooter and the Sorcerers Stones” that’s just OG HP with the names swapped.

Ideas will be stolen and fame will go to the wrong people. Small creators will suffer. Much like happens anyway but people won’t be sued to kingdom come because mickey mouse was on a shirt that an extra wore in the shoot that made it into their indie film that blew up or whatever.