In the United States, copyright exists mainly for the benefit of the public, while European countries fixate on authors’ rights. In both cases, the law really doesn’t benefit the public to the extent it should. From Branko Collin’s blog in the Netherlands:
The interesting thing about copyright law, is that it more or less presumes the interests of the author to be unchangeable. Not only that, but it tries to protect these interests as if they are at their strongest.
Of course, the public loses out big time in this scenario. When an author has lost all interest in a work, the public is still not allowed to mix, rip and burn it.
Well, at least here in the States, the mixing and the rest can take place when the terms expire, but thanks to Hollywood-bought legislation, that will be a long time.
I am a professional author and screenwriter, and I do not believe that authors ever “lose[s] all interest in a work.” Usually, if that seems the case, it is because the author does not control the copyright in the work and cannot get it back. A good agent will only lease the copyright to a book, for example, to a publisher for a certain number of years, after which the copyright reverts to the author and s/he is free to sell it to another publisher, self-publish it, post it on the web or whatever. Authors who assign their copyright for ever to a publisher are screwed when/if (when is more likely) the publisher decides the work is no longer marketable.
While in an ideal world, and as a vast consumer of free information on the web myself, there would be no copyright, if you believe that a writer/musician/artist/filmmaker has a right to make a living by creating work that the public wants to experience, then some form of copyright – even if it is exercised as a kind of honor system as with Radiohead’s In Rainbows – needs to exist.