Life + 50 years is pretty much meaningless in software. Its so huge compared to the average life cycle of software you might as well give people a thousand years. In the end the functionality of the program could only be protected by a patent anyway (a much shorter term); So people are free to create something that looks different but does the same thing after the patent expires. Not to say I endorse software patents, though there are cases it would make sense, they are given for such absurdly broad things they loose all meaning.

Interestingly enough, a lot of cases in software the functional life of it is only a few years, maxing out at a decade depending on what part of the market you’re in (software is still used after this, just it tends to be one or two big sites). The de facto rule is that once no one is maintaining the software it is open season. There are companies that exist solely on licensing old game copyright and porting the game to the latest hardware and making a few bucks from the nostalgic (I’d say this is a win-win). This kind of renewable copyright would work quite well for software I believe for all parties involved.

Given the very, very, small number of (usually) multinational corporations actually invested in lengthening copyright vs. the very, very, large number of abandoned works under those lengthy terms - I’d personally be willing to cede some ground to the former in order to get the latter into public domain sooner.

No matter what you think about the merits of the Disney corporation there’s no doubt they’re protecting their legacy materials. If I have to choose between a chance at besting the corporate machinery to have “Steamboat Willy” out of copyright, vs. an easier fight to get millions of orphaned works there… that’s a tough call.

That being said I can’t argue the fact that important cultural touchstones (the 80s smiley face, Joe Rosenthal’s photo on the beach of Iwo Jima, the rediculous copyright situation of the “Happy Birthday to You” song… etc) all need to enter the public domain.

Two interesting exceptions that I hadn’t really thought:

1. Stock footage. This is one case where there is constant library value of a collection (and the foundation of the system by which stock libraries can actually purchase materials from artists - knowing they’ll pay off over long periods of time).

2. Early Work of Later Popular Writers. If there was only, say, a ten year copyright every time a writer (say J.K. Rowling) became famous we’d be flooded with public domain copies of their early work (although the obvious caveat here is that the artist themselves is likely the only reliable source for early, unpublished work).

So maybe a platonic ideal system would be one where copyright extension fees are based on some combination of the length of term to date, and also the commercial value to date of a property (ie: If I’ve made zero dollars from my poem, it should be cheaper to renew in the hopes that I sell it some day when I become famous). This is obviously completely untenable…

Disney can still sell mickey mouse after its copyright expires, it will just have to compete, through either price or quality. I wonder how these international corporations will fare when they have to face a free market.

as a visual artist, i rely on copyright to protect my images, but I am lucky that there is a physical scarcity. there is only one of each of my paintings, so copyright is mostly irrelevant in that part of my work.
But as a part time freelance photographer, I do need copyright to last a year or two for my work to have value so I can get paid for it. but honestly, after a few years, I’m done with it. having copyright last for my entire life, PLUS 50 years is simply ridiculous. 10 or 15 years, with an option to renew a few times (for a fee) would be a much more reasonable and balanced approach, I think.

As it exists now, copyright is far too one-sided, and the users of copyrighted material are being screwed, big time.