Eternal copyright?

Back in March when the scope of the COVID-19 pandemic became clear, i has somewhat jokingly suggested that it would be only a matter of time before the French would suggest an extension of the term of copyright corrosponding for the duration of the crisis to compensate artists for tehir losses (a la “Mort pour la France”).

Less than a month later this prediction has now been fulfilled (well sort of). French composer (and copyright functionary) Jean Michel Jarre has proposed to create “the concept of eternal copyright”.

In our #ResiliArt launch debate on how to support culture during #COVID19, #UNESCO’s Goodwill Ambassador @jeanmicheljarre suggested eternal copyright. What do you think?

We’ve started the conversation, now we count on you to join it.

ℹ️ https://t.co/CdGXKOKnhd #ShareCulture pic.twitter.com/iuRrR3j9DW

— UNESCO 🏛️ #Education #Sciences #Culture 🇺🇳 (@UNESCO) April 19, 2020

To be clear, Jarre is not arguing for a prolongation of individual copyrights, but for assigning copyrights to a global fund that would distribute money to creators in need, which at first sight is an interesting idea, although it would raise a all sorts of practical issues: How to make sure that this benefits creators instead of institutional rightholders, who qualifies as a creator and how to make sure that this stifle creative appropriation?

Addendum: Alek calls this “a communist version of Youtube”