Copyright Should End With Death

Copyright protection of artistic creations (including books, music, visual art, etc…) should end with the death of the creator. Upon death, the work should immediately enter the public domain.

The main reason is because there is no compelling reason for it to extend past death. Copyright protection, and with it, exclusive marketing rights over the creation, is best justified as a means of incentivizing artistic creation. This protection gives creators a much better chance to monetize their work than they would have had without it, thereby providing means and/or encouragement for such creation. Once the author is dead though, they are not capable of enjoying the monetary benefits from this protection anymore, thus severely diminishing its incentivizing effect.

I say severely diminishing, not entirely eliminating, because some creators might like to secure the royalty money for their descendants after their death. But this consideration is only relevant when the creator is so old or sick that they foresee their, relatively imminent, demise. Otherwise, they will be around to receive the copyright-protected royalty stream, and will remain incentivized to continue creating. Nevertheless, it is possible that removing copyright protection after death might disincentivize old/sick creators, which should be considered a (small) negative of my proposal.

‘Now hold on’ a critic may object. ‘Taking away copyright protection upon death is like levying a large inheritance tax on the dead person’s assets. And I thought you were against such taxes!’ In response, I am indeed against inheritance taxes, but I consider the current proposal to be a fundamentally different beast. The reason inheritance taxes are bad is because they encourage old people to consume their accumulated capital for the purposes of consumption, as the tax will diminish their ability to pass on their capital assets to their loved ones after death. This results in a withdrawal of capital investment from the economy, which reduces wages and productivity. No such effect is present for the case of removing copyright protection upon death. In fact, there is reason to believe it would have the reverse effect. Knowing that their descendants wouldn’t be able to rely on post-death royalties, the creators might be encouraged to save and invest more of their pre-death royalties, and then leave a capital asset legacy to their descendants instead. This would result in an injection of capital investment into the economy, which would increase wages and productivity.

Besides this, there is the more obvious benefit of consumers getting much cheaper access to the creator’s works right after the creator’s death, rather than having to wait 50-70 years after the creator’s death to get the cheaper access. Plus, copyright of any kind is getting more and more difficult to enforce, so it makes sense for authorities to focus their enforcement resources on the much more important protection of living creator’s works, and to allow dead creator’s works to enter the public domain immediately.   

In sum, my proposal has three main benefits: cheaper access for consumers earlier, better focusing of enforcement resources, and the encouragement of capital accumulation. These are set against one small drawback: the potential disincentivizing of old/sick creators who believe they are near death. I would say that the benefits most definitely outweigh the costs, therefore, copyright protection should be removed following the creator’s death. 

Post-Secondary Education Policy

My contention is this: there is no good reason for governments to subsidize post-secondary education in any way, shape, or form.

Because here’s the thing: either the educational investment is a good one, in which case the student will be able to make up for the cost of the education in extra future income, or the educational investment is a bad one, in which case the government shouldn’t be wasting taxpayer money on it.

Let us consider the good investments first. Let’s assume that with only a high school education, you could earn a yearly salary of $40,000, while with a Computer Science Bachelor’s Degree, you could earn a yearly salary of $90,000. Now let’s assume that the tuition required to obtain this degree is $50,000. A loan provider offers you a deal: he will pay your $50,000 tuition, in exchange for $80,000 due 4 years after the degree has been completed. You accept the deal. Once you have your degree and get your $90,000 job, you take $20,000 off your salary each year to pay to the loan provider. You effectively earn $70,000 each of these four years, $30,000 more than without the degree, and after four years, you are free and clear. You win, the loan provider wins, the university wins, the skills-seeking employer wins: everyone is happy.

In this situation, there is clearly no need for the government to step in. When a deal is mutually advantageous to all parties, the free-market will make it happen. If you are a bright young person with high marks and a clear aptitude for your chosen, practical discipline: loan providers will rush to make such deals with you, because it is likely that you will be able to succeed in the job market and pay them what they’re owed.

Now let’s consider the bad investments. You want to do a degree that is unlikely to make you much more valuable to employers than someone with just a high school education (ie. something like ‘Women and Gender Studies’). Loan providers will be reluctant to loan you money for this education because of the high risk that you won’t pay it back with the requisite interest. So should the government step in and fund this person’s education? No! Why should taxpayers be forced to pay for the luxury spending of university students?! Because a degree whose purpose is to ‘introduce students to differing perspectives’ is just that: luxury spending. One does not need to get a fancy university education in order to be exposed to differing perspectives: an Internet connection will do just fine for that. If a student (or their parents) can afford to pay for this kind of education, then absolutely they should be entitled to. But there is no good reason for the government to subsidize it.

Oh, and one more thing: the government shouldn’t be in the business of determining what post-secondary institutions are worthy of being ‘degree-granting’ institutions and which are not. Private professional, trades, or scholarly associations are perfectly capable of deciding what institutions and educational programs meet their desired criteria, and certifying them based on that. They will certainly be better qualified at doing so than governments, who often care more about political considerations when making such decisions than they do about things that actually matter to the future employers or colleagues of these students.