Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
To be fair, once you get past a certain number of years, it become difficult to show how extensions of copyright damage the public at large. What's the difference between the Berne Convention copyright (life plus 50 or 75 years for corporations) and the Mickey Mouse Protection Act (life plus 70, or 95 years for corporations)? From a movie point of view, if they hadn't extended copyright, any movie prior to 1945 would be in public domain, yet I can still go out and buy DVD of the most of the major movies for 1939 (Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, Stagecoach...). From that stand point, the public hasn't been seemingly harmed.
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Harm to the public is not just from works becoming unavailable. The public is harmed by the monopoly causing higher prices. The public is harmed by derivative works being more expensive or forbidden, and by the chilling effect of the possibility of being sued for unintentional infringement.
Copyright is a monopoly. It's there for a good reason (to encourage people to create works) but it should be the minimum length that achieves that goal. IMO it is currently enormously longer than necessary. And retaining a monopoly longer than necessary harms the public almost by definition.