Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
I want someone who's fluent in PoliticoSpeak to go to Congress and say, "want to make big inroads on the unemployment problem, and herald in an era of creativity and commerce the likes of which have not been seen since the advent of the printing press?
"Remove retroactive copyright extensions and announce that everything published is subject to the length of copyright protection at the date of publication + 56 yrs max; throw everything published before 1955 into the public domain.
"Then reduce copyright protections to the Berne Convention minimums: Life+50, with just 50 years for movies, which will add more public domain materials.
"Watch the internet explode in money as books, films, music and art are produced faster than the copyright office can keep up with the registration requests."
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It obviously would be good for readers, but it would destroy jobs. Destroy those jobs that are now supported through sales of the items that would lose protection. Disney is a perfect example. What jobs would be created if their early works were available for free? The only jobs that would create are perhaps at disk burning factories that would knock out $1 DVDs of the movies and could now also sell to the US.