[ SECRET POST #5561 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5561 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


01.



__________________________________________________



02.



__________________________________________________



03.



__________________________________________________



04.



__________________________________________________



05.



__________________________________________________



06.



__________________________________________________



07.

















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 32 secrets from Secret Submission Post #797.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

So you're anti-inheritance too, right? Because you didn't earn it?

If an author left the rights to their family, why is that a bad thing? People in other professions do that all the time.

[(Anonymous)]

Right? The people holding the rights after an author's death aren't usually some randos.

[(Anonymous)]

Not OP but, while I'm not anti-inheritance and I don't have a problem with leaving the rights to the family, I think leaving the rights to the family *for 70 years* is absurd. It's clearly too long of a protected period. And I think in practice, the law acts much more to the benefit of large corporate rights holders than it does to the benefit of the actual families of actual creators. US copyright law is bad.

[(Anonymous)]

Why is leaving the rights to the family for 70 years absurd? I’m just asking why you specifically think it is, not trying to agree or disagree one way or the other.

But yes, US copyright law is indeed bad.

[(Anonymous)]

One, in general, I think the public-interest arguments for letting things enter the public domain are extremely strong.

Two, the argument for copyright as inheritance is that it's for the benefit of surviving relatives, right? So you have to think about it in terms of lifespans of surviving relatives. And in that context, a 70 year term means that the copyright will almost certainly be longer than the lifespan of any children of the original creator. Even in the case where a creator leaves behind a newborn child, the copyright will be in that child's possession for nearly all of their life. In cases where the author leaves behind adult children, which is probably more common, it's likely that the copyright will span a significant portion of the lifetime of the grandchildren of the original creator, and it's very possible that the copyright will last into the lifetime of their great-grandchildren or even further. My great-grandmother lived into her 90s; if she had been an author, her works would have remained under copyright until I was in my 80s.

So, when you take into account the strong public interest in seeing things enter the public domain, I just don't think there's a good argument for saying that inheritance means we need to let things remain under the control of the original creator's family for several generations.

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for the well written reply! What you said makes total sense to me, so I agree.

[dantesspirit]

70 yrs is copyright law standard, not something the family arbitrarily decides, until the period ends. They have every right to protect a work created by a loved one, or to sell it for whatever they deem it's worth if they so choose.

While yes, Title 17 needs updating, that doesn't mean it's outright bad.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think that's quite the same thing - if the author made a lot of money from the creative work in their lifetime and left that money to their family, OP doesn't sound like that'd have a problem with that.

Sounds more like their main reason for buying a work is to support the author, and once the author is dead, there's no author to support, and their reason for not pirating is gone.

[(Anonymous)]

It’s not quite the same thing, but it’s not wholly distinct either.

OP doesn’t sound like they wouldn’t have a problem with it either, because they didn’t bring up families of deceased authors or family estate copyright anywhere in their secret. The fact that they never brought it up, and treated it like the only people that benefit off an author’s works after the author dies is the predatory publishing system and “whoever now holds the rights to something they didn’t create” means that I don’t know why you seem so sure OP would be fine or not with paying in the case of the money going to the the surviving family.

Honestly, the way they phrase “whoever now holds the rights to something they didn’t create”, and the fact that they put that right next to predatory publishing industry makes it seem like they very well might be against the family getting the money. Considering the family didn’t create the books, and OP seems to think that’s the be all end all to who should get the money. And they’re not wrong in thinking that when it comes to the publishing industry, and how probably shouldn’t get money from works they didn’t create once the author is dead. But comparing surviving family members to predatory business people, even if it may have been accidentally implied? I’m not a fan of that phrasing.

[(Anonymous)]

SA

Although when I talk the predatory publishing industry and how they shouldn’t get money off of the works of deceased authors, I’m of course only talking about the higher ups in the company. The people who had nothing to do with the creation of the books in any way shape or form, but still get money from them because they run the company. I’m not talking about the people who work for the publishing houses that did have a hand in making the book. Sure, they may not have created the story, that was still the author. But without them, the actual book never would have been published and shipped out. I believe they still deserve to be paid for their work even if the author has died.

[(Anonymous)]

Not the OP but yes I am, to a point. And the point is where large estates should be taxed heavily as a major contributor to entrenched inequality. But it will never get voted on because the prime voters are 50+ and want to leave their small estates to their children/grandchildren, and the very rich bank on that with their advertising scares, meaning they'll get to pass obscene amounts of money to their children.

This is very unlikely to apply to your average author, but there are some who would be affected. Also public domain should be after the death of the author plus 20 years.