I've been asked to talk about copyrights and the balance between creator rights and public benefit. I read through some threads by Cory Doctorow on twitter and watched a talk he gave. In my view, he comes out fairly strong against rights holders. Since we're all writers here I'm curious if this is something you all think of as important or whether the 'public good' part of the policy behind copyright should be subservient to the creator's rights. One example I used on twitter--copyright term was initially 14 years, now it's life of the author plus 70 years (whereas patents have gone from 14 years to around 17 years). The current term is, in my view, beyond what can be said to promote the public good. It's a recognition of rights-holder interests (mostly corporate). Is it too long, or as writers do you feel it is best to keep those rights for yourself and your heirs as long as possible? I'd like to be able to present perspectives from both sides to the class I'm talking to. There is not a right or wrong answer--it's a policy discussion and we expect interests to differ depending on the stakes of the parties.