Re: Knight and Public Domain

[Mike Taylor <mike@indexdata.com>]

Bob Tess writes:
 > >> Artists and their descendants derive income from licensing.
 > >> When copyright becomes public domain - that income is as gone as
 > >> Bill Gates' car.
 > >
 > > Artists and their families gain an income from the artists' work
 > > during the artists' life.  That money, life other possessions
 > > obtained in other ways, will have been inherited by his family
 > > when he died.  Why anyone should _still_ be gaining an income
 > > from Knight's work 55 years after his death, and how that is
 > > supposed to stimulte Knight to do more work, is beyond me.  And,
 > > by the way, you can bet that whoever is getting that money, it's
 > > not his family.
 >
 > You are quite wrong, his granddaughter, Rhoda Knight Kalt receives  
 > income from the reuse of his images.

If my grandfather was a carpenter and made a table, would I expect to
be still receiving an income from that table now?

 > > And by the way, in case you think I am blue-skying here, I make my
 > > living writing computer programs, which are also subject to copyright.
 > > So far as I can see, a term of ten or maybe twenty years, tops, would
 > > be plenty enough to motivate me to produce.  Leaving my stuff under
 > > copyright for seventy years after my death is wholly irrelevant to the
 > > bargain.  All it achieves is to retard the use of my work.
 >
 > Your work will be out of use in 20 years.  Art is more enduring.
 > That is why it needs protected.

Not so.  Plenty of my own code from 20 years ago is still in use.
Most of the code that implements the protocols on which the Internet
is build dates back to the 70s.  Many businesses still use systems
developed in the 60s or even 50s.  Despite predictions of its
emphemarality, experience shows that much code is surprisingly
enduring.

In any case: are you seriously arguing that the copyright term should
be longer for paintings than for other copyrightable works?

 _/|_    ___________________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor    <mike@indexdata.com>    http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\  "I am haunted by the memory of the kiss you should never have
         given me."