Eh, for manned landing missions, I'd rather that the historical preservation zone extend to the horizon (inclusive of the skyline). The desolation they encountered is important, IMO. Otherwise you'd have something like the Eagle descent stage surrounded by the Tranquility Mall food court someday. The moon is big, and they never went very far, so this isn't a big deal.

Let the rule apply to anyone's first manned landing site (unless they waive it), and all manned landings prior to the beginning of real industrial development. Unmanned probes need only a small area around them, though, I think.

There is still a market for creative labor. There is still a market for some goods which happen to embody creativity, eg original works of art (as distinguished from copies; the original Mona Lisa is worth more than a poster of it). But it seems that the market for many creative goods that was enabled by copyright and certain technological advances in mass reproduction and transmission, is dying.

So be it. For most of human history that last market didn't exist, and yet there was art, and we got by. Copyright as we knew it may have been an aberration. I think we can save some of it, but we must remember that copyright isn't worthwhile on its own; rather, it's a means to an end. If our priorities change, so must copyright.

What about an orange drink made out of Cheeto powder mixed with water?

Well, I don't think that they owe anyone anything. It would be immoral to compel an author to create a work, or distribute or perform a work. If HBO decided to cancel the series, we should not force them to resume it. (We can ask, we can put forth arguments that might convince them to reconsider, but we can't force them)

But that's not the situation here. Here, HBO has created and performed the work of their own volition. No one could rightly force them to put it on the Internet as a freely downloadable file. But if some third party did that without HBO's involvement, then it would be wrong for HBO to take action to prevent this. At least, insofar as we care about morality here, as opposed to utility, which is a lot better suited to this issue, I think.

And yes, if a creative work is created, everyone does have rights to it. This is an inherent part of free speech: the right to repeat verbatim what someone else has already said. Now, again, there is no right to force someone to create a work or to share it with you in some fashion. So if the work is kept secret, your right is moot; you don't have knowledge of the work or access to it. But once the author willingly grants you a look, you have the right to share it with anyone else, and you can see how it snowballs from there.

We put legal constraints on this for utilitarian -- not moral -- reasons. But they're artificial and ultimately optional. There is no right of an author to force none else to grant and respect copyrights. If we do so, it's because it suits us, and only to the extent that it suits us. (At least assuming the laws are not corrupt) In the absence of these laws, one may do as he pleases.

That's why there is a law that summons copyrights into being, and a law that dismisses them back again, but no law that grants rights in uncopyrighted works to the public, because there is no need for such a law; that is what happens automatically.

In this context, you are describing a legal right, not a moral right. Don't confuse legality with morality; there are plenty of immoral things which are legal, moral things which are illegal, and laws -- such as copyright -- which are meant to follow other principles, and are merely expected to be amoral.

The reason, at least the alleged reason, why copyrights are granted (at least in the US, though it's the only sensible reason, anyway) is that it promotes the public interest. Not because authors are entitled to it, or because it's the right thing to do. Copyright is supposed to promote the progress of science by encouraging the creation and publication of certain creative works while minimizing the harm it necessarily causes the public, so as to produce a net public benefit. Nothing to do with morals; just utility.

Is HBO acting morally by denying people access to a what is effectively a published, creative work, unless they pay for it? It might be necessary for their business model, it might even be a reasonable and generally unobjectionable practice, but restricting the availability of culture for mere money doesn't strike me as being affirmatively moral.

Generally I regard copyright as an amoral field, governed mainly by utility. But if I had to look for a moral dimension, surely it would be on the side of the subset of pirates who, whatever their other failings, at least disseminate published creative works to anyone who wants them, for free, and often in a more useful form than the legitimate publisher. (This would exclude commercial pirates, ad-supported or ratio-supported pirates, etc., but it still leaves plenty)

Remember, just because HBO has the right, i.e. the legal authority, to control the distribution of the work, that doesn't make them right, i.e. morally justified, to do so.

Not that slow. Now movies are out on video within a few months (3-6 IME) of their initial theatrical release (with second run theaters in between). Tiered TV releases (PPV, premium cable, basic cable, network) over the course of a couple of years, slowing down as it goes along.

The best serious work I've seen on this is a paper by Rufus Pollock, which you can read here. IIRC he figures it at about 15 years. I can't follow it, unfortunately, but he seems to be using real math.

I'd love to see more analysis on the subject. I have a gut feeling that the term should be about 25 years, shorter for some classes of works (especially software), with some classes of works not eligible (e.g. architecture), and with annual or bi-annual renewals, along with a registration system. But I'd gladly yield to something more rigorously worked out. So long as it produces the greatest net public good, I'm on board.

Nobody granted any protection of that sort until 1710, and then only in England, and not in most of the world until well into the 19th and 20th centuries.

But I would not say that the vast majority of the history of the world is lacking in culture. Hell, we've certainly lost more culture in the past than we'll ever know, and we've still saved an amazing amount of great stuff.

We would be fine without copyright. The idea of copyright is that it can produce a better outcome than the no-copyright baseline, even accounting for the harm that copyright necessarily causes. If so, it's worth doing, but abandoning it is always a viable option.

No, rent seeking behavior by copyright holders tends to prevent this. Why bother creating enough works to have us awash in them if you can just shut down any competition and not waste money improving anything you've done yourself?

Most books don't get adapted into films. Don't try to make general rules to suit the edge cases. Otherwise you may as well rewrite the tax code to charge everyone a flat million dollars a year, which we can all easily afford since a handful of people win the lottery. (In fact your odds in the lottery are probably better than your odds as an author)

Instead consider that most books make the vast majority of the money they'll ever make within around 18 months of publication in a given medium. This is why publishers stagger the publication of hardback and paperback editions; they view the different formats as a mere excuse to justify a rerelease of the book at a new price point without upsetting their better customers who buy books earlier at higher prices.