Re: Neat summary of Google strategy

>> This is certainly true if you simply don't know how to track down
>> heirs who are rightsholders. However - how does this work if
>> everyone has lost track of the author? If there is no definitive
>> report of an author's death, when does "life+X" start counting
>> down?
>>
> I agree with you completely. And, were I Empress of the World, I would
> undoubtedly reduce the length of copyright to some more reasonable
> number, such as 25 years. But I'm not, so it doesn't matter

I was thinking about a solution the other day. And it seems to me that  
there are very few people who care about having nearly endless  
copyright terms. And those people can bribe congress indefinitely to  
extend and extend and extend to their heart's content. Meanwhile, the  
vast majority of people who don't really care about endless copyright  
have it and it's of no value to them.

Maybe we need to rethink copyright or at least the way we charge for  
it. So those who don't care about their copyrights--for ephemeral  
things like emails or technical books that go obsolete--only get them  
for a reasonable amount of time. Let's say 15 years, the original  
term. But people who really care about their copyright can pay  
periodically every 15 years to extend it up to the theoretical 150  
years now allowed. Incorporate a tracking requirement (like with  
domain names) where you have to keep current contract info or risk  
losing the rights. That way, Disney gets to keep the mouse and we're  
not protecting people's emails for 150 years. If you care that damned  
much about protecting your copyright, you register it for the extended  
protection.

Not that it'll ever happen, but there HAS to be a more functional  
method than this.

Since we have such a difference of opinion, what would the ideal  
system look like?

> And, yes, I know that there are a lot of amateurs who are happy to
> work for accolades. Unfortunately, the vast majority of them are
> amateurs for a reason at the moment. I don't think that many of them
> will ever have the time to raise their technique to the level we
> currently demand of pros in any future world, unless we let their work
> earn them a living wage. And I don't see any viable way to do that
> unless we sell the copies.
>>

You know, I'm not sure there's an argument there. At least where  
fiction is concerned, you DON'T "make it" until you're soup... and  
crackers with a silver spoon on a fancy tray. You develop your craft  
largely--if not wholly--unpaid for the effort. And there's no  
guarantee you'll make it even if you do become great, unless you find  
the right editor on the right day with socks the right level of  
tightness who **gets** your work.

People will still write fiction if no one ever pays them. Some will  
become very good at doing it, even producing great art. But overall,  
there will be less art, because everyone will have to have day jobs-- 
which truthfully, is pretty much the case now. Only the biggest of the  
big can just write. Everyone else has a day job, even if their title  
is "Mom."

With non-fiction, you're more likely to get paid at least bit and  
pieces along the way to that first book length contract. But the  
amounts are generally small and grow--maybe--as your skills grow, but  
not always.

There is, flat out, less connection between writing and getting paid  
and it's been going that way for the last 50 years. People were  
freelancing for a buck/word in 1960 and they're doing it today.  
Magazines were paying $0.04 for fiction in 1960 and they're paying it  
today. It just goes a LOT less far.

>> In such an environment, ebooks will probably disappear along with
> everything else, IMNHO, UNLESS we can get people to shift toward an
> ethos that demands buying copies of them, as they currently buy copies
> of p-books.

I was thinking this morning about what might be the result of the  
Accelerated Reader program and the almost insane emphasis on reading  
in the schools. I don't have numbers on the AR program, but in  
encouraging--even forcing--more kids to read and maybe to be  
proficient readers, could we possibly be creating the biggest  
generation of readers we've ever known? It could be that the industry  
will stop its long slow decline...

What say you?

dej

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