No they don’t. Longer than any human is known to have ever lived =/= “functionally forever”. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have Winnie the Pooh horror movies.
This is only because the Winnie the Pooh copyright existed before the passage of the 1976 Copyright Act. That law makes all copyright items created after Jan 1 1978 be covered under the life of author plus 70 years. Copyrighted items prior to the 1976 act were covered under the terms of the previous copyright acts (and the 1998 Copyright Extension Act, the Mickey Mouse Protection Act) which set up fixed expiration times.
Yes it is, hence the qualifier "functionally"
They shouldn't. No other profession works that way. They should be paid once for each job like a mechanic or an electrician. And certainly not for 70 years after they're dead unless their ghost is haunting the Earth still doing the job for those 70 years.
I'm pretty sure most creators live more than 5 years after publishing a work on average
If the IP generated serious money that’s inheritable (to say nothing of the privilege of being raised with such wealth), they will benefit whether they have exclusive control over the IP or not. I think there’s a reasonable argument that might say a copyright might reasonably extended past a creator’s life to support their kids through to their majority. But I think it’s kind of ridiculous to go longer.
This comment makes no sense to me. I don't see what a restaurant has to do with this. I mean I have seen a lawsuit here that two competing restaurants stole the menu and design but they also were previous owners of the first restaurant so I kinda see that. Seems more like a non compete thing that Copyright/Trademark or patent law.
And didn't Fords primary success come from cost focus and production efficiency vs patents?
Ford had a lot of interesting insights that helped him succeed, like paying good wages during the depression, thus both reducing his employee turnover costs AND reaping the benefits of circulating money in the markets his facilities were in.
