I might should give a little more context to the copyright issue.

I was a professional photographer for 15 years, a field in which copyright played a big role. In a nutshell US/European copyright says that whoever pushes the button on a camera, writes a story/poem, or lifts brush to canvas - creating a work of art - owns that creation. There is not a copyright application needed, it belongs to the creator.

This seems straightforward, but then there is the case of the photographer David Slater who set up a camera so that monkeys in Southeast Asia could take selfies. Even though it was his camera, the monkeys pushed the button, so when PETA sued him on the monkeys. They case ended up settling out of court without clear winner or loser.

Then there are derivative works (or fair use), the most famous being Shepard Fairey, who created the famous Barak Obama Hope poster, an artistic rendering of a photograph to which he did not license the copyright. Eventually this case was settled, and it's not clear whether Fairey was within legal rights to create the work of art.

But what if he hadn't? The poster changed history.

The spirit of copyright law, in my mind, is to protect creatives, to provide an avenue to compensation for their work. But there is a fine line between protecting creativity and squashing creativity.

One reason I created Dead Poets Live is because the statute of limitations on copyright is generally 50 years (70 in some European countries) after the artist's death. So I can share a poem, we can discuss it, and I don't need to live in fear of lawsuits.

This is generally true, though now families and publishing corporations are involved in the questionable practice of buying and republishing copyrights to extend the timeline. Is it wrong for the family of an artist to profit from their creation? Not necessarily. But at some point, important cultural works should belong to society and stop being hoarded. 50 years seems pretty fair to me.

The way I handled this in my photography career was to offer a generous license. Families would receive the digital copy of their files, they were free to print and share as they wanted. I owned the original copyright, so if they were going to publish commercially or run in a magazine, they would need to ask my permission first. Seemed reasonable, and I never had an issue with a client.

Of course there were people who would screenshot my pictures and use them to promote a fake business. I felt bad for the people they were scamming, but I wanted to create, not worry over what had been taken. Legal action in this case is possible, but the best course was usually to notify a website host or the platform (Facebook back then) that the image had been stolen. Beyond that, didn't seem worth my worry - I'd rather create something new than fight over what was taken.

Anyway, that's a long rant on the backstory to this poem!