> In general, judging which categories don't need the protection of copyright amounts to deciding which categories of readers don't matter.

I agree if you say "don't need protection", though I think that's a harsher criticism of my proposal than is warranted. Maybe there are categories which need stronger protection that what I proposed, which is fine.

But I think you're also not considering the fact that _entry into the public domain_ is also a huge positive value to the reader.

So, we need to have a balance between adequately incentivizing works, and works entering the public domain. I'd argue the current balance we've struck is totally fucking broken, and gravely harming readers of all types.

But, I'm open to the criticism that we would run the risk of this scheme of not adequately incentivizing certain works. I think that's good feedback.

Wouldn’t this scheme benefit children? Imagine growing up on Arthur and hitting early adulthood as its copyright expires and being able to contribute to the Arthur universe you grew up on. Conversely, I wonder how many people know Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is public domain and different from the version Disney has had since the 50s. The way things are now, I couldn’t make anything related to most of the things I grew up with because everything being pushed on children is owned by a corporation.

The issue with Alice's Adventures is separate from copyright. Many (most) people have never read Lewis Carroll; being in the public domain doesn't change that, and there is no giant profit in publishing books in the public domain, so they aren't going to get a big promotional budget.

That’s the point, though. It would be more famous except that there’s a seemingly endless amount of money promoting corporate-owned media. Things might be different if the media kids take in is more organic and they might be more encouraged to contribute to writing and art if the things they grew up on weren’t encumbered by copyright.

Another thing to note also is that kids had stories long before Disney was making VHS tapes and before we had Scholastic pumping out picture books. It’s not like we as humans are incapable of creating without a monetary incentive.

> No, it's not fine. Children are important, and worthy of getting new stories that address their needs.

Equating retaining ownership by copyright to protection, is an example of reasoning used to abuse copyright. The products still exist when they enter the public domain and need no additional protection, that copyright offers. It's really disturbing to see commenters repeat the attitudes that left copyright in such a degenerate state.

If the goal is to get new stories, a short period of copyright is magnitudes better than copyrights lasting for lifetimes. OPs system allows people to copyright their work for free for 5 years, which is when most works will be most profitable anyway

Authors generally don't build their careers by publishing books in 5 year periods. They generally build a body of work over decades whose residuals keep them alive in hungry/lean years. You also run into issues e.g. The Last Unicorn's author whose rights were taken from him because of elder abuse! Once he gets them back he gets nothing? That sucks.

Eh? All categories of copyright should be equally weakened. The readers happiness matters far more than the author's pocketbook for they outnumber him.

Children's stories have been made since time immemorial.