|
It's great to see the long copyright people admitting that patent exists and try to justify the difference in the length. Here's the real answer...
In the patent world, short terms remain due to the fact that for all the loss of revenue, the holders gain in revenue from using other expired patents. In other words, once the major profit is made off a patent, you save more money using other people's expired patents than you would make keeping yours. Therefore, none of the big corporations are willing to fund the bri-- (oops) campaign contributions it would take to stretch the patent length.
Copyright, on the other hand, doesn't have any gain to offset the loss of revenue from copyrights. So the corporations keep stretching the length, to be able to keep every last cent... The creators here may think it's to help them out, but they're just poster children for big corps.
Follow the money...
(Note, every extension of copyright in the US since 1909 has been at the expiration point of major corporate copyrights. Think Steamboat Willie . That's why the real purpose is to keep the 1928-1959 block of sound films (and Steamboat Willie). Why that period? Because Ronald Reagan sold all the actor's residuals down the drain in a strike settlement in 1960. So therefore, unless somebody had a participation (which hadn't been reall common in that period, and even then restricted to basically the 1950's), the copyright holding corporations get all the money off the old films. (And that has been 10's of billions of dollars over the last 30 years...)
Think I'm joking? 1978 revision. Overrode the 56 year copyright and made it 70. Yes it put in Berne Life +50 for new works, but it could just have easily followed Berne in it's entirety. But that would have hurt Hollywood.
1998 revision. Making it Life + 70 was an attention getter to dodge the real skullduggery. Nothing was going to go out of copyright from Life + 50 until 2029. But those early Hollywood movies were going to start falling back out of copyright in 1997. They lost one year, 1922, but got them extended for another 25 years. Note, post '78, which was not at threat only got 20 years extension but pre '59 got 25. Think that was an accident? Think that there isn't going to be another major move by Hollywood in the next 6-7 years to extend those pre '59 titles again? Like I repeat, follow the money....)
|