After an initial period of a few years 7 or 14 sounded good to the US founding fathers), Copyright holders should declare the value of their copyright, and have to pay an escalating fee based on that value (1% per year for the first 10 years, 2% per year for the next 10 years etc) as a tax.
If anyone wants to put the work in the public domain, they simply have to pay the value the company declared.
Disney could declare Star Wars is worth $5b, as it’s 40 years old they’d have to pay say $150m a year tax to deny the rights to the public.
If they declared it to be worth $50m to save on that tax, then netflix could pay for it to go public domain.
If anyone wants to put the work in the public domain, they simply have to pay the value the company declared.
Disney could declare Star Wars is worth $5b, as it’s 40 years old they’d have to pay say $150m a year tax to deny the rights to the public.
If they declared it to be worth $50m to save on that tax, then netflix could pay for it to go public domain.