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Originally Posted by Conan46
Agreed. U.S. Copyright and Trademark law are the most abused laws in our country. And sadly, the powers that be have twisted arms to get the rest of the world on board.
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I believe it's the reverse. The current copyright law is based on the Treaty of Berne originally signed in 1887. The Treaty of Berne was basically developed by Victor Hugo the rather rich French author. The US didn't sign the Treaty of Berne until the late 1970's under the copyright law of 1976, sometimes known as the Sonny Bono act, since Sonny Bono died just before the law was rammed through and his death was used as an excuse to pass the law. Signing the treaty had little to do with books, but rather were driven by movie and music copyrights, since that was were all the money was. It coincided with the various Hollywood movie studios (i.e. Disney) wanting to expand their market outside the US, but of course since the US didn't recognize copyrights granted outside the US, the countries outside the US didn't recognize US copyrights.