Less is More

Copyright is often seen as a good thing, and in most cases it is. It protects the individualistic ideas of citizens within our country. If someone comes up with an original idea, they should have the rights to that idea without anyone else being able to profit off it. I have no qualms with the idea of copyright itself, but rather the idea of how long that author is able to hold on to those rights.

As it is in effect right now, Spinello states that, copyright laws give authors “exclusive rights in their works, especially the right to make copies” for the author’s lifetime plus 70 years. No, I did not make a typo. Even 70 years after departing from this earth, an author is still able to hold on to the rights of their works without anyone easily making copies or using them. To me this seems a little absurd. It seems unnecessary that the author should hold the rights even after they have passed away. I think that it would be more logical to cut down those rights. The author did put a lot of long hours and hard work into their specific works and therefore should be rewarded for it, but only for a reasonable amount of time. I present that the author have copyright on their works for the period of their lifetime. This way, the author will have control and profits from their efforts all the days of their life and do not have to worry about anyone taking that from them. It makes no sense for them to still be profiting off of a work when they are not even alive anymore.

I will reiterate that I am in no way saying that copyright is a bad thing, but rather that it just needs some small revisions. By protecting these works for such a long period of time, I believe that we are only hindering our country, instead of providing it with incentive to be more creative. This would be a small effort that would reap an even greater change.