January 1st is Public Domain Day, the day when the copyright terms for many works expires, which in many cases is 70 years after the death of the creators unless you live in Australia where it is merely 50 years. [via]
Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 would have entered the public domain today in the US if they hadn’t repeatedly extended copyright terms.
For Bradbury’s book, this means that the reading public, the braille printer, the budding playwright, the school library face either higher prices, or legal restrictions on reuse or both. And they get no benefit from it. Clearly, the incentive of 28 + 28 years was enough to encourage him to write the book and the publisher to publish it. The evidence is that.. it happened. Retrospectively extending copyright is deadweight social loss — harm without benefit.