I sometime wonder whether IP should be permanent like Physical Property.
I'm looking at it from the other end to "Shakespeare's copyright was owned by X'; instead, my house will continue to benefit my heirs in some way after I'm dead, and their heirs, and so on. So why shouldn't my heirs get a similar benefit if I were to write, draw, compose, etc. something similarly valuable.
Yes, it would be the most significant change to inheritance since copywrite was thought of, but is that a bad thing? I don't know.
*playing devil's advocate*
As an aside I don't think that it would be possible to put the escaped IP back in the bag, so to speak. So if the change were implemented those creators whose IP had already expired it would remain expired, but those whose hadn't it would continue indefinately.
Back to the discussion: I'm not convinced that a very few people would own almost everything, and most people would be bulldozed off the private land into the sea. All the existing houses are largely in private ownership, rather than having been bought up by mega rich investment companies, so I don't see that it would be any different with IP. Indeed, it would actually put more money in the hands of the creator's heirs. Consequently the film companies (the wealthy of the organisations that use expired IP) would have to shell out some of their finances to pay the private inviduals who owned the IP. I would think that this would actully put more money in the hands of private people: the opposite of what you suggested.
intellectual property
I'm looking at it from the other end to "Shakespeare's copyright was owned by X'; instead, my house will continue to benefit my heirs in some way after I'm dead, and their heirs, and so on. So why shouldn't my heirs get a similar benefit if I were to write, draw, compose, etc. something similarly valuable.
Yes, it would be the most significant change to inheritance since copywrite was thought of, but is that a bad thing? I don't know.
*playing devil's advocate*
As an aside I don't think that it would be possible to put the escaped IP back in the bag, so to speak. So if the change were implemented those creators whose IP had already expired it would remain expired, but those whose hadn't it would continue indefinately.
Back to the discussion: I'm not convinced that . All the existing houses are largely in private ownership, rather than having been bought up by mega rich investment companies, so I don't see that it would be any different with IP. Indeed, it would actually put more money in the hands of the creator's heirs. Consequently the film companies (the wealthy of the organisations that use expired IP) would have to shell out some of their finances to pay the private inviduals who owned the IP. I would think that this would actully put more money in the hands of private people: the opposite of what you suggested.
Convince me otherwise. :-)