> Put a cost on renewing copyright. This is actually how it used to be. Half way through, you could pay a fee to have copyright extended. Very few people paid this fee (because most works aren't economically valuable), so most works went into public domain much sooner. Journals charge $30 to access obscure ancient papers. But I bet they wouldn't pay even $30 to keep the rights to those same papers.
I agree completely. This would go a long way towards bringing old works into the public domain, by making sure the artificial privilege of exclusive control requires active interest to maintain.
Ideally, I'd suggest making the fee scale exponentially (or at least non-linearly) with age, as well. That would lead people to ask questions like "is this decades-old work really worth millions to renew again, or should we make something new with that same money that'd reset the fee schedule?".
I agree completely. This would go a long way towards bringing old works into the public domain, by making sure the artificial privilege of exclusive control requires active interest to maintain.
Ideally, I'd suggest making the fee scale exponentially (or at least non-linearly) with age, as well. That would lead people to ask questions like "is this decades-old work really worth millions to renew again, or should we make something new with that same money that'd reset the fee schedule?".