Quote:
Originally Posted by Daithi
Here are a few works that are available in death +50 countries, but not in countries like the U.S.
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... All of which would be in the public domain in the US if copyright hadn't been retroactively changed, if the contract under which they were published hadn't been changed without consent of one of the parties involved.
I don't even care if Disney manages to keep control of The Mouse forever. I want the *rest* of American culture and art from the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s released to public. Maybe a change in the law that says "if it's not still actively in production and available for sale to the general public in 50 years, it enters the public domain."
Ebooks and digital movies could interfere with that--a publisher/production house could put a collection of lousy scanned PDFs or low-res digital movies out for $200 each and claim to make them "available for sale"--so maybe it'd need a codicil that requires a minimum number of sales or dollar amount. If it's not making $1000 a year for *someone* after 50 years, it deserves to be released for public use. The tax dollars on less than $1000 worth of sales isn't worth the tax dollars to tie up the courts to defend it from infringement.