In Canada the length of copyright term for an author is the life of the author plus 50 years. I am going to assume this is the same term if the author sells the copyright to a corporation.
If that is the case, I would like to see a blanket ban on changing the copyright law. Now why would I be so dictatorial? Well you see I plan on becoming a professional author and having books published with my copyright. I of course plan to sell out as soon as possible to a corporation.
Without being able to spend a dime on copyright law in order to expand it, the ever greedy corporation would then look to other ways to expand the copyright and thus make money out of nothing.
The very first thing they would think of would be setting conditions on myself, the living author. Perhaps they would tell me never to sky dive or do any risky activity. But to enforce this, they would have to change current copyright law. So they’ll have to look deeper.
As a thought experiment, let’s say J. K. Rowling is Canadian and has an increased risk of breast cancer due to family history. It would be simply prudent for a corporation that controls her copyright to point out to her that the increased risk might be in her genes as was the case with Angelina Jolie. The prudent corporation would pay for the genetic test to be done. That is the gateway. If Rowling had the same gene, the corporation could offer to pay for a double mastectomy or any other preemptive surgeries.
The gateway is important. Other fatality causing illnesses in the successful copyright author’s family might not offer such neat solutions. Instead, the prudent corporation might begin spending research dollars to attempt to give longer lives to its authors. Doctors and PhDs would get some of the copyright money instead of lawyers. This would also benefit Jane Q. Public if some of the research paid off. This would give a positive benefit for copyright law.
As well, the copyright owning corporation might also start funding “ignorant time travel” schemes. You know, plans for human hibernation, suspended animation or cryogenics where the ability to not age for some years while the author is still alive and capable of being revived. Sure the corporation may have to do some talking like, “As a best selling author, you would be the most likely to be able to withstand future shock.” Some authors may choose to take that route. After all the high tech of today is laughable by the standards of the future. That might be incentive enough.
We might even be able to get interstellar travel out of this. Let’s just tell the corporations that going very close to the speed of light results in time being slowed down for the author. After their return, 100 years may have passed on Earth but the author will have only aged a few months.
With big corporations jostling to extend my life, I would be a fool to consider any other option than becoming a copyrighted author. And even if my life isn’t extended meaningfully I might have a great adventure through suspended animation or an interstellar trip. We are fools to look at lawyers as the only way for corporations to make more money off copyright.
