[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

We're now over 12 years into the 20 year copyright extension provided by the Copyright Term Extension Act in the US.

The first Mickey Mouse cartoon is set to enter the public domain (if it's not already public domain because of a flawed copyright notice) on 1st January 2024, less than 13 years away.

Since Congress has already pulled some public domain works back into copyright (and the Supreme Court is soon to decide whether that's constitutional), perhaps we will see an attempt to simplify the current terribly complicated US copyright length rules, and impose a simple lifetime+70 rule for everything? That would give Mickey another 13 years to 1st January 2037.

Or even, to harmonise with Mexico, lifetime+100? That would lock Mickey away safely until 1st January 2067.

It will be interesting to see if anything is brought forward in the next few years.

The effort will absolutely be made. Once it is submitted, I will start the a lobbying effort call "Make Mickey Pay For Granny!".

What is it? A progressive Tax on copyright. You pay, you keep, you don't pay, to the P.D. it goes...With the US being desperate for money, make the results payable to the various old age programs...