Quote:
Originally Posted by pdurrant
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
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I'm not a lawyer, and has not read the specific Bono amendment law, but I believe it extended to life + 95 for existing works (in 1998) and left the new works thereafter at life + 70.
The sound recording extention was shot down by the UK parliment, in 2007, so the RIAA shifted the focus to EU, which, if passed, would force the UK to extend in order to maintain unity with the EU.
No, I don't see it being shortened either. What I see is a prolonged Prohibition Era (US 1920-1933 when alcohol drinking was prohibitied by a Federal Constitutional amendment - and the US population drank like fishes under it!), with the occasional spectacular raid, eventually ending with the abolition of copyright - in 30-40 years. At the rate that technology is going, in 10 years, a bootleg data chip will hold 10 terabyte, enough for a 1000 DVD's, in a chip the size of a SD chip.