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My pet example for the excessive length of copyright protection today is the German author and WWI hero Ernst Jünger. He published his diaries of the Great War "In Stahlgewittern" (Storm of Steel) in 1920. He then went on to live to the ripe old age of 102 years, dying in 1998. His work will therefore be protected until 2068, giving "In Stahlgewittern" protection for almost 1 1/2 centuries. Who is the main beneficiary? Most likely his publisher as the people closely associated with him have died long ago.
Authors themselves have received inspriration from the public, right down to the very tools of their trade, letters and language, therefore their own works shall return to the public after some time.
BTW, the Industrial Revolution spread so fast because everyone was busy stealing British intellectual property (who themselves were also happy to grab intellectual property wherever they could get it). The spread of knowledge is therefore a common human interest and this limits the property rights of the author or inventor.
As a side note: Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" is currently not printed in Germany as the State of Bavaria claims to have inherited Hitler's rights to the book and refuses any permission for print. It will be interesting to see what they will do when the book goes into public domain in 2015.
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