Robert Shimmin wrote:
The sad truth is that when approached from an economic point of view, the optimal length is so short that it seems absurd, and nobody takes you seriously after they hear the result. Here's the analysis:
interest copyright rate term 2% 35.0 yr
That's very interesting... I've done other analyses, based on other grounds. On the "widows and orphans" theory, that copyright income should be protected not only for the poor starving artists/authors, but also their widows/orphans, life+about 35 years is where the law of diminishing returns kicks in: life+35 years is enough to guarantee the majority of copyrights will actually outlive the majority of the poor orphans that were left behind, assuming western lifespans. The average age of those "orphans" who are still alive when the copyrights die, would be 75 years. (Of course, no orphan would ever be less than the PLUS in life-PLUS when the copyrights expire.) Further, 35 years post publication -- let alone post mortem autoris -- is where the number of books still in print dips to less than five percent, at least in the samples I've tested this on, are still even in print, at least in Canada. That is to say, of the books first published in 1954, in 1989 only 4% and change were still in recent print, and many of those only in editions for the blind.