It's not fair to compare companies and copyright. I can make a company that provides the same service as your company or a bit of your company or as your company and two others combined, and not violate anything -- that's (mostly) celebrated as competition and innovation.
Also, your proposed 20 years copyright + 20 years extensions for derivatives would make it trivial to extend copyright indefinitely by producing a trivial derivative at 19 years. It could even be automated. I think it would be better to fix the derivative works clause so such a work is copyrighted on its own.
As I already said, and as multiple people seem incapable of reading. It would hinge on being able to determine what a legitimate derivative is.
Also, you don't seem to have a clue what a derivative is. A derivative work is a whole new work based on the original copyright and that original material being necessary for the derivative work. Sequels/prequels/whatever are derivatives, an edited edition is not. I don't get what's so hard for people to grasp about that.
The copyright could be structured so that the copyright does lapse, but in the existence of derivative works the derivative copyright is extended, giving protection from someone writing an unauthorized sequel as long as the new material is in copyright.
Wow, thanks for that amazingly educational response. I had no idea I was such an idiot.
First, according to the Wikipedia entry on derivative work, "[...]The Mona Lisa With a Moustache. Often used by law professors to illustrate legal concept of derivative work." seems to suggest that producing a derivative work is indeed trivial. Copyright doesn't care if anyone would actually want to consume the work.
Also, why is it that protecting derivative works would automatically mean that the original needs protection as well? While you're preparing the 21st edition of your annual comic series, I make one that is a derivative of your first edition (now out of copyright). Sure, it's inconvenient for you, but I can't pretend to be "the real thing" as your trademark is certainly still covered. The fan-fiction universe seems to suggest such a "parallel" universe can exist without anyone mistaking one for the other.
The argument of The Mona Lisa With a Moustache is actually a rather thinly stretched argument on the concept of derivative work. In fact it illustrates the exemption to copyright in that it falls under parody in fair-use. You could put a moustache on FHM's sexiest woman and be exempt from any copyright and have created a derivative work. So I fail to see how the derivative work clauses in copyright is harming anything when your example of a trivial derivative work actually trumps the evil you're claiming.
> Sure, it's inconvenient for you, but I can't pretend to be "the real thing" as your trademark is certainly still covered.Sure, it's inconvenient for you, but I can't pretend to be "the real thing" as your trademark is certainly still covered.
Actually yes you can, it's virtually impossible to trademark a name and it would be easy to fool untold thousands by publishing an eighth Harry Potter and simply leave out the authors name. This then lands the pressure on book sellers to vet the works they sell to ensure a work is a legitimate sequel so as not to damage their own profits by selling inferior knockoffs.
> The fan-fiction universe seems to suggest such a "parallel" universe can exist without anyone mistaking one for the other.
Because a crudely written story on some fanfic board is really going to confuse consumers in a bookstore or on Amazon. Seriously, it's absurd claiming people don't mistake the two when you'll never see the two together in the first place. You'll never see fanfic anywhere but backwater sites because when people start making money off of it, the person will be screwed beyond belief. People get raped by the RIAA for allegedly costing them money; imagine what lawyers can do when they can prove you cost them money by having a record of your sales.
Also, your proposed 20 years copyright + 20 years extensions for derivatives would make it trivial to extend copyright indefinitely by producing a trivial derivative at 19 years. It could even be automated. I think it would be better to fix the derivative works clause so such a work is copyrighted on its own.