It’s always been curios to me that the author or inventor or artist doesn’t own the rights to their work for all time. Why do these things expire?
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The reason is in the US Constitution.
>[the United States Congress shall have power] *To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts*, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
The point is to encourage people to make things that benefit society by granting them monopoly power for a limited time period, after which the enter the public domain and everyone benefits.
Personally, I don’t think copyright or patents should ever be in effect. They seem incredibly unfair. Even if they expire very quickly.
Most of the responses are spot on but I’ll add one more tidbit to explain why IP expires for patents. And that’s the trade off between patent and trade secret. If someone wants to keep access to IP forever, then they go the trade secret route and take the risk that the trade secret leaks out. If they want guaranteed exclusivity to practice the trade secret, then they request the patent, but trade off is that they lose exclusivity after 20yrs.
To stop monopolies. When one entity has sole control over a technique, material, device then they have historically abused that position to gain power and wealth.
So we give them the rights for a short period of time. A small period where they have no competition and are able to get things up and running. Especially as the first ones often face larger challenges (sourcing materials, logistics, spare parts, training, etc…).
During this period the item/service is often sold cheaply to build a customer base.
But after that, others get a chance. Otherwise the price of the service just goes up and up. And anyone trying to work around it pays fines, licensing, or faces legal problems.
One example is the Lucas Films Star-wars franchise. They have the rights, and routinely let people buy the rights to use it. Final Fantasy games had a license and made a very successful collectible card game with the content. As time went on, Lucas Films kept raising the licensing price until FFG was no longer making any profit from their product. Every $ earned on their card game was essentially sent to Lucas Films for the right to make the game. So FFG shut down the entire line.
Now, imagine this with something like “light switches” or “LED’s”.
It may be easier if you reconsider the phrasing.
What expires is not ownership of the idea, but the government preventing other people from using your idea without your permission.
It’s not as if 70 years after Shakespeare’s death, everyone started to claim they wrote King Lear, but the state stopped enforcing the exclusivity of the work.
Human beings are EXCELLENT at pattern recognition. When we see something that works, we copy that thing. Improvise, adapt, et cetera. That’s how everything moves forward. Someone throws a spear, the next guy makes an atlatl, someone else makes a bow, the cross bow, and so on.
Governments want to incentivize the advancement of science so they give you a limited monopoly on this. In a perfect world, This allows you to create something truly novel without having the idea stolen by someone with deeper pockets.
The original copyright term was something on the order of ~~7~~ EDIT 14 – years. Unfortunately, today’s copyright laws have been extended specifically for the benefit of corporations such as Disney (recall that the impetus for the copyright extension act was that Mickey was at risk of going into the public domain). Disney robbed the commons (myths, stories of Hans Christian Andersen, folk tales, etc), and then did everything they could to stop others from doing the same.
For a counter example of what can happen when something does enter the public domain, look at all of the variations on Sherlock Holmes over the years, the success of It’s a Wonderful Life, and all of the Lovecraftian Cthulu games, merch, etc.
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