I don't know what is or isn't good terms for copyright length, though I think I'm okay with "Life +" something for individual creators[1] (though not even plus-25 years, as that's still too much, I think). Maybe "Life +" something or your value of 40 years, whichever is shorter (and given that most people aren't going to be writing a novel at 5 years old and then immediately dying, only the 40 years bit would be relevant in most cases, and in the case of the 5 year old dying immediately after writing a novel, well, they're not going to have a spouse and kids to support after the fact, anyway).
Yeah, the video game industry as a whole is barely 50 years old, much less any individual game, aside from maybe Pong or some shit (and, no, even Pong wasn't invented until 1972, so it's only 49 years old). As such, in this case, I think John's desired length for "corporations" (since "Life+" doesn't apply there, since corporations aren't, you know, alive) was still 75 years, which is way too long. I think it should be "some arbitrary number of years far, far less than 75" or "until the company that created the game in question utterly ceases to exist entirely, leaving the question of copyright up in the air" (as has been the case for far too many games), whichever period is shorter. And I don't think copyright should be allowed to be sold for pre-existing products, either. Now, the IP concept in general, I can maybe allow for that being sold, so that you can have things like, say, Activision making more King's Quest games, since they own the rights to the IP now, but not making profits for decades into the future on the sale of the old King's Quest games, since those games were created before the series was ever in the hands of Activision. If anyone should be making money from those, it's Ken and Roberta Williams (and whoever else helped with the later games while they were still fully under the Sierra banner, rather than Activision). After that, after those people are no longer around, those games should be public domain. I don't care if Activision still owns the IP rights to King's Quest as a whole.
As far as free distribution being "okay"... well... if I wrote a novel (and I'm still vaguely kinda sorta plugging away at that), I wouldn't want it being distributed outside of my control, either for profit or freely. That said, I'd still be less inclined to go after people sharing my shit on bittorrent or something than I would someone repackaging it and reselling it as their own shit, though I wouldn't be too awfully happy about either situation.
[1] - Though not for fucking "estates" or whatever, because that leads to shit like the "Conan Doyle estate" still trying to sue for licensing fees on the use of Sherlock Holmes and other asinine horseshit, even though it has been well over 70 years since Arthur Conan Doyle died.
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Date: 2021-03-11 06:18 pm (UTC)From:Yeah, the video game industry as a whole is barely 50 years old, much less any individual game, aside from maybe Pong or some shit (and, no, even Pong wasn't invented until 1972, so it's only 49 years old). As such, in this case, I think John's desired length for "corporations" (since "Life+" doesn't apply there, since corporations aren't, you know, alive) was still 75 years, which is way too long. I think it should be "some arbitrary number of years far, far less than 75" or "until the company that created the game in question utterly ceases to exist entirely, leaving the question of copyright up in the air" (as has been the case for far too many games), whichever period is shorter. And I don't think copyright should be allowed to be sold for pre-existing products, either. Now, the IP concept in general, I can maybe allow for that being sold, so that you can have things like, say, Activision making more King's Quest games, since they own the rights to the IP now, but not making profits for decades into the future on the sale of the old King's Quest games, since those games were created before the series was ever in the hands of Activision. If anyone should be making money from those, it's Ken and Roberta Williams (and whoever else helped with the later games while they were still fully under the Sierra banner, rather than Activision). After that, after those people are no longer around, those games should be public domain. I don't care if Activision still owns the IP rights to King's Quest as a whole.
As far as free distribution being "okay"... well... if I wrote a novel (and I'm still vaguely kinda sorta plugging away at that), I wouldn't want it being distributed outside of my control, either for profit or freely. That said, I'd still be less inclined to go after people sharing my shit on bittorrent or something than I would someone repackaging it and reselling it as their own shit, though I wouldn't be too awfully happy about either situation.
[1] - Though not for fucking "estates" or whatever, because that leads to shit like the "Conan Doyle estate" still trying to sue for licensing fees on the use of Sherlock Holmes and other asinine horseshit, even though it has been well over 70 years since Arthur Conan Doyle died.