[neiman]

I recently made a radical proposal of public domain rules; It's inspired by GNU software licenses. It goes like this:

1. Anyone can use anything that is in the public domain.

2. Any creation that uses elements from the public domain is also, automatically, in the public domain.

3. Activate retroactively: When the first book in a series (for example) gets into the public domain, then the whole series (and franchise) becomes public domain.

(3) depends on what the initial rule is for something to get into the public domain.

P.S: It's a thought experiment, not an actual "let's implement it now!" thing.

[ivan_gammel]

That would make any movies based on stories in public domain impossible, because it would destroy all financial incentives to make them. No, derivative works should be on their own terms.

[neiman]

A few questions:

1. People still do software based on the GNU license. What's the difference?

2. I'm a mathematician - math is not copyrighted, yet it's still being done.

3. Is it really so important for society that copyrighted movies be based on old stories? Won't society benefit from new stories and characters?

To be clear, I don't propose to really implement it. But the existing system also sucks. I'm thinking that maybe incorporating such an idea into the existing system - limiting what you can do with public domain work - can be beneficial.

[tgv]

#1 is known to be problematic in open source, so it would need qualifications. #2 is so broad, it would make practically anything PD. And there's no reason for #3. It might even be implied by #2.