alt Hacker NewsWhy would people author published works if they won’t get compensated? Countries with weak copyright enforcement don’t tend to have better output than the US (I think most would argue it’s worse).
I do agree the term is too long, I would support something in the range of 5-20 years.
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That's an odd question to ask given the history of free media like flash games, youtube videos, deviant art/pixiv/etc, and fan fiction. Getting paid, especially enough that one can make a living off of it, for your creative work is an exception not the rule way more people create it for no money than ever make any money at all much less a living.
Copyright didn't exist when Shakespeare was alive, clearly there was no incentive for him to write.
The most basic incentive is for the fun of it. There are plenty of people who publish stuff without hoping to get directly compensated for it. Even otherwise, ideas have a nasty habit of breaking free from the first authors, specially without laws to prevent such.
Also, copyright isn't about compensating authors, but publishers. Authors are basically an afterthought.
In regards to countries with weaker copyright enforcement, I think there's a bit of an inversion. Most countries that fail to properly enforce copyright do so due to a lot of structural issues, which also hamper creative thinking for independent reasons. China would be an example of a country with weaker copyright enforcement but also with good infrastructure, and it seems to be overtaking (if it already didn't) the US in terms of creative production (both for copyright and patents).
same reason so many people contribute for free to open source projects, I imagine. Same reason tons of musicians put out music for free online as well. Both successful and amateur alike at that.
I’m not saying we are entitled to those efforts but clearly people are willing to do it.
> Why would people author published works if they won’t get compensated?
Do you think no one was publishing anything before the year 1500?
I mean, your question is basically right. People won't do things if they won't get compensated. But copyright isn't even a large portion of the compensation people get from authoring works.
My relativity professor W. G. V. Rosser wrote a textbook on special relativity (An Introduction to The Theory of Relativity) which I very much doubt paid him back enough in royalties to compensate him for the time it took to write and also to issue revised editions.
It seems unlikely to me that he ever bothered to think about copyright