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What will enter the public domain in 2026?

publicdomainreview.org

101–110 of 383 posts

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#101
post #60

The length of copyright is absurd. Corporations have hijacked a concept that should exist on human timescales. Ideally, a child could legally provide their own spin on IP they consumed by the time they reach adulthood. But also, people need to make a living. I actually think the original 14+14 year copyright is the right balance. It gives people time to make their profits, but also guarantees the right of people to t…

I love the original 14+14. I’ve heard proposals for exponentially growing fees to allow truly big enterprises to stay copywritten longer, like 14+14 with filing and $100, another 14 for $100,000, another 14 for $10M, another 14 for $100M. That would allow 70 years or protection for a few key pieces of IP that are worth it, which seems like an okay trade off? So many ideas better than the current regime.

I think would diminish independent author rights. Quite often, a novel will become popular only decades after publishing, and I think the author should be able to profit on the fruits of their labour without wealthy corporations tarnishing their original IP, or creating TV shows and the link with no reperations to the creator.

Fantasy book are a good example. A Games of Thrones was first released in 1996 but had middling success. It was only after 2011 that the series exploded in popularity. Good Omens main peak was ~15 years after release. Hell, some books like Handmaiden's Tale were published in 1985 but only reached their peak in 2010.

IP law was originally to protect artist and authors from the wealthy, but now it seems to have the opposite intent.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#102

> works by people who died in 1955 70 years. After death. The rules have to change. 70 years is way too long.

Sure, the term of copyright protection is quite long; but the amount of works that are legally 100% in the public domain and even Internet-accessible in some form but simply languishing in obscurity and have yet to be made comprehensively accessible to the general public (via digitizing, transcribing, indexing and comprehensive classification) may well be orders-of-magnitude larger! There's a whole lot of low-hanging…

Part of the reason for that is precisely that copyright is too long so works get lost or forgotten before they enter the public domain.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#103
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about making people profit and enjoy life without having to push propaganda that this or that work they contributed to make them worth having them alive? The premise that if they are not highly pressured to produce something people will just do nothing or only wrong things is such a creepy one. Universal income or something in that spirit would make far more sense to get rid of this concern of having people not…

If I would need to choose only between UBI and high taxes on the rich I would choose the latter, because it would reduce the risk of entrenching the differences or giving too much power to a few. I find more important what is the society's perceived "success" in life. For US (one of the two countries in the study), as a foreigner, I perceive that "success" is considered to be "the self made man". So people feel valua…

>If I would need to choose only between UBI and high taxes on the rich I would choose the latter

There no need to be exclusive, and actually having concentration of wealth in a few hands is already a social construct. A society can also thrive without high income disparities. Taxing the rich is just taxing on what was captured from the non-rich.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#104
post #60

The length of copyright is absurd. Corporations have hijacked a concept that should exist on human timescales. Ideally, a child could legally provide their own spin on IP they consumed by the time they reach adulthood. But also, people need to make a living. I actually think the original 14+14 year copyright is the right balance. It gives people time to make their profits, but also guarantees the right of people to t…

I love the original 14+14. I’ve heard proposals for exponentially growing fees to allow truly big enterprises to stay copywritten longer, like 14+14 with filing and $100, another 14 for $100,000, another 14 for $10M, another 14 for $100M. That would allow 70 years or protection for a few key pieces of IP that are worth it, which seems like an okay trade off? So many ideas better than the current regime.

Why on earth would you do that? Why should copyright ever be extended after the fact for already being profitable? That only benefits huge corporations in the same way copyright already does, to the detriment of everyone else.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#105
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the original 14+14. I’ve heard proposals for exponentially growing fees to allow truly big enterprises to stay copywritten longer, like 14+14 with filing and $100, another 14 for $100,000, another 14 for $10M, another 14 for $100M. That would allow 70 years or protection for a few key pieces of IP that are worth it, which seems like an okay trade off? So many ideas better than the current regime.

I think would diminish independent author rights. Quite often, a novel will become popular only decades after publishing, and I think the author should be able to profit on the fruits of their labour without wealthy corporations tarnishing their original IP, or creating TV shows and the link with no reperations to the creator. Fantasy book are a good example. A Games of Thrones was first released in 1996 but had midd…

If a novel you wrote 15 years ago becomes hugely successful you can capitalize with a sequel. Maybe GRRM would have written them a little faster in that universe.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#106
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the original 14+14. I’ve heard proposals for exponentially growing fees to allow truly big enterprises to stay copywritten longer, like 14+14 with filing and $100, another 14 for $100,000, another 14 for $10M, another 14 for $100M. That would allow 70 years or protection for a few key pieces of IP that are worth it, which seems like an okay trade off? So many ideas better than the current regime.

I think would diminish independent author rights. Quite often, a novel will become popular only decades after publishing, and I think the author should be able to profit on the fruits of their labour without wealthy corporations tarnishing their original IP, or creating TV shows and the link with no reperations to the creator. Fantasy book are a good example. A Games of Thrones was first released in 1996 but had midd…

So add another 14 to the original 14+14, giving 42 years of maximum protection. That would cover your examples and require active renewal to send abandonware to the public domain earlier. I'd love to see shorter terms, but active renewal would already greatly enrich the public domain.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#107
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think would diminish independent author rights. Quite often, a novel will become popular only decades after publishing, and I think the author should be able to profit on the fruits of their labour without wealthy corporations tarnishing their original IP, or creating TV shows and the link with no reperations to the creator. Fantasy book are a good example. A Games of Thrones was first released in 1996 but had midd…

If a novel you wrote 15 years ago becomes hugely successful you can capitalize with a sequel. Maybe GRRM would have written them a little faster in that universe.

Or you can't because 57 new sequels were published the week before.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#108
post #45
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What really sends home just how ridiculously long it takes public domain to kick in to me is that Mein Kampf is on that list. It feels like something that even in 1996 would have been a bit eye-raisingly overdue.

It's absolutely ridiculous and has almost everything to do with Disney trying to maintain their hold on Mickey Mouse. Every single time his expiration came up they managed to lobby for an extension and now we're left with this current mess of a system

Wow, I didn't know the connections between Mickey Mouse and Mein Kampf ran that deep. ;-)

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#110
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolutely ridiculous and has almost everything to do with Disney trying to maintain their hold on Mickey Mouse. Every single time his expiration came up they managed to lobby for an extension and now we're left with this current mess of a system

Wow, I didn't know the connections between Mickey Mouse and Mein Kampf ran that deep. ;-)

I was like you once...

takes long drag from cigarette

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