Re: Where's my Bud, Popeye


Froggy wrote:
>
> The question is more whether the protection granted is sufficient to
> stimulate innovation and creation. Apparently artists are much greedier
> and less altruistic than scientists and engineers ...

IMO, its more likely not altruism, but who's more likely to be
exploited by an employer into permitting their IP rights to be
transferred away (scientists/engineers tend to be slightly more
financially caring/savvy).


> Another odd thing is that the shortening lifecycle of artistic creation
> should result in a shortening of the protection granted. But it's the
> other way round. IIRC the post-mortem protection was somehow justified
> by the idea that an artist might die before is genius was recognized,
> but that at least his heirs shoud benefit... not so many recent
> examples of that, despite the premature death of some rock musicians.

The "heirs" arguement? Let's use Elvis Presley as an case study.

Elvis died 28 years ago (1977), at the fairly young age of 42. Based
on the (death+70) duration of current US copyrights, his works will
remain locked up under one owner (whoever that owner is) to control
price until the year 2047.

His beneficiary Heirs:

Wife:

Priscilla Presley. She was born in 1945, so as per standard life
expectancy statistics, she will probably not live to age 102 to see the
commissions end. Odds are, she'll die around 30 years earlier, so
there's pragmatically no difference for her between a protection of
(life+70) or (life+40).

Children:

Lisa Marie, born 1968. To survive to 2047 would mean that she would
have to live to age 79, which also exceeds the standard life expecancy
statistics, so the odds are that she'll be covered for her entire life
too.

Theoretically Youngest Possible Child would have been born in 1978.
They would have been covered until age 69. The Government's Social
Security and Medicare would take care of them if they had been lousy
investors.

Lisa would be covered to retirement age with a (life+56) copyright
protection.

Grandchildren:

Lisa Marie has had two: Danielle (born 1989) and Benjamin (born 1992).

Neither of them ever met their Grandfather. If they had, then Elvis's
works under the (life+70) would then last for their entire statistical
lifetime. But since Elvis died young, they will have to suffer the
financial loss of the cessation of Elvis's copyright-protected revenue
stream at the tender young ages of 55 and 58...

....and do note that this means that they'll each be at least a decade
older than their grandfather who created the works that they're
benefitting from when they incur this financial hit. YMMV, but I think
a 50 year old can more than take care of himself. In fact, most people
would say that the limit of perceived fairness for grandchildren would
be through college (age 25) which here would call for protection until
2017, or Elvis' (life+40).

For this concept of "financial protection" for the heirs of an artist,
in this case study of a "tragic death at age 42", the current
protection lasted for effectively two *full* human generations.
Compared to other forms of compensation, is this fair or excessive?
YMMV, but I say excessive.


-hh

.

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