1. What exactly do you propose should happen to all of the material that is ALREADY copyrighted under the current system? Say it was recorded twenty-five years ago. Should that be counted as “two and one half extentions?”
Given the fact that the current U.S. law presumes copyright, even without registration, and, thus, no practical way to track anything in cases where the holder’s identity is obscure — what’s to be done there? Declare everything that’s not explicitly registered to be “public domain”? What happens if someone with a reasonable claim to be copyright-holder of the work surfaces afterward? Vital questions that you didn’t cover.

2. What does this do to the FLOSS distribution model (either for software, or for “Creative commons” cultural content, etc? What happens to Stallman’s ability to enforce GPL compliance, at the end of the ten years, or however long?
To my way of thinking, it would basically shatter the FLOSS structure as it currently exists. Does every revision of the Linux Kernel get a different copyright term? What about all of the various Emacs modes and stuff? One of Stallman’s biggest contradictions is that he is a complete power-and-control freak, who seems intent on saddling “free software” with an increasingly restrictive and downright draconian license (GPL 3). If Stallman — as pissy as he is NOW, in regard to GPL compliance — ended up with less ability to pull strings, you can bet he’d bail on any such “reform” proposal.

3. What exactly do you mean by “any noncommercial use?” Does that include (for example) emailing an mp3 as an attatchment, to twenty different relatives? What if THEY pass it along to others? This is not as far-fetched as it may seem, given the fact that that godawful “ate my balls” internet fad has touched just about everybody.

“the devil is in the details”, as they say — and this is no exception.

I agree that abandoning Copyright is not the answer and I think your list is a good starting point. As I have described here before [1] I think concentrating on ‘rights’ not ‘copies’ is the way to achieve this transition which is why free software we should be kept free to protect ‘rights’ as we have discussed before[2].

One interesting aspect of granting and regulating the rights of all users, not just authors and creators, is that the Copyright term (point 1) could be made indefinite. The reason why this will work is that over time a broad section of the community will obtain ‘rights’ to the original work and an even larger audience will obtain access therefore the controlling effect of the original rights holder will reduce (eventually virtually to zero). The advantage here is that the original rights holder will always be recognised as the original creator and people can always refer back to her if they choose to go to the original source. It also avoids the need to set an arbitrary term limit which might need to be different for different types of work.

[1] http://p2pnet.net/story/6358
[2] http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/2523

will someone please think of the children. . .

>.>

Your suggestions certainally make a very good starting point to work from. I myself agree with most of it however i think copyrights should last the lifetime of the creator, however the only usage that would require payment after a initial period (of say 7 years) would be using the work to directly make profits yourself. ie using someones music as a soundtrack for a film.

i write computer code, and am more than happy for people to use my code for their own uses for free, however i dont want other people profiting from using my work unless i see a fair share of it.