this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2026
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You probably should've because yeah, the way AI companies are treating creative works is disgusting and downright wrong, but copyright law has very much been broken ever since the Internet became a thing. It's just silly to treat works published on the internet the same way you treat books, paintings and DVDs, not to talk about the issue of jurisdiction on an entity that transcends borders . Aside from that, the laws have been "evolving" to the advantage of big "IP holders" and against the public for a century. A copyright being valid for 70/120 years after the death of the author makes no fucking sense. It should be public domain the day after.
Why tie it to death, why not a plain and simple 5 years?
If it was the day after they died, mightn't that have an unintended consequence of making it more likely that copyright holders would start "falling out of windows" just when it's convenient for producers and AI crooks to snaffle up their content, royalty-free?
Isn't that how inheritance works? Everything including the long copyright get inherited immediately.
Well yeah, it is currently. But not if the work becomes PD when you die, as OP is suggesting.
... murder is also illegal?
Not for certain people.
So you're an author and the only thing between a billion dollar studio and a royalty-free production of your work (that you have no creative input into) is your own death. And you'd feel fine and safe with that because "murder is illegal"?
It's hard to get away unnoticed with producing a work that infringes copyright, since they tend to have to be released to the public, and from a known source. Getting away with murder is a cinch in comparison.