Well, that's the US situation. And I think you'll find US copyright length is more 95 years for corporate copyright, /or/ life+70, not life + 95. So All Cabell's works come into the public domain in January 2029.
But we're still in agreement. And Macauley said what you've just said in a debate in the House of Commons in 1842:
Remember too that, when once it ceases to be considered as wrong and discreditable to invade literary property, no person can say where the invasion will stop. The public seldom makes nice distinctions. The wholesome copyright which now exists will share in the disgrace and danger of the new copyright which you are about to create. And you will find that, in attempting to impose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting of the works of the dead, you have, to a great extent, annulled those restraints which now prevent men from pillaging and defrauding the living.
Unfortunately, I don't see a way to get copyright returned to a sensible length.
Indeed, even as I type, there are moves afoot in the EU to increase sound recording copyright from the current 50 years to 95 years - in part to harmonise with US legislation!
Paul
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward
They are interwined. If I make a copy of say, James Branch Cabell's Figures Of Earth published in 1921, it's been legal since 1976. If I make a copy of James Branch Cabell's The High Place, published in March 1923, I'm a crook, and will be one if I do it until 2054 (US -JBC died in 1958, life + 95 + next year boundary = 2054). That's a 78 year difference for 18 month's printing difference. And there's no guarantee that it won't get extended again.
So people who might be supportive of a reasonable copyright length may (and often do) throw up their hands in frustration and "pirate" everything, new and old. You know the old saw, "you might as well be hanged for ram as for a sheep". The result is massive civil disobence.
Now, you might get better moral justification, with a much shorter copyright period. Might not, but the current system is morally bankrupt. And the masses, for once, have an effective way to fight back. And they are doing so, and it won't stop as long as the technology exists to do it with.
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