[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by epiphany

A nice idea but what is to stop European customers from importing from developing countries? Especially with ebooks, this would require laws enforcing geographic market segmentation which is most commonly used to reduce competition and hike prices and has the even worse consequence that some countries are denied access to certain books entirely.

There are already limitations in place on where electronics are sold (even within the EU, and usually counter to the "free trade" laws that exist, so it would hardly be the exception. that said, I have no idea how easily those export rules could or would be circumvented.

Originally Posted by Good Old Neon

I’m (obviously) not a copyright expert, but let’s take….Mickey Mouse for example. If his image were to pass into the public domain, would that then allow other companies and individuals other than Disney to profit from his image? And if so, would that then allow, and I’ll use an extreme example, ummmm…the KKK or some other equally repugnant racist organization from co-opting his image for use in promotional materials?

Huh? you're advocating copyright to limit free speech? Isn't that antithetical to everything the USA holds dear? It doesn't seem at all pertinent to this discussion.

Originally Posted by Good Old Neon

I just don’t understand why some folks feel that artists are not entitled to continue to profit from their works at least until they die, or for a period of time thereafter (the thereafter meaning their estate of course).

Originally Posted by Good Old Neon

I guess my next question would be, how is it skewed against the creators?

Because we're (or at least I and my friends are) becoming increasingly aware of the fact that authors (although more poignantly musicians) receive almost nothing of the money we spend on the works. While book authors usually at least keep the copyright over their own works, most musicians do not, and especially when those record companies are lobbying for things like "life+70", and then saying "but think of that unkown guitar player in the beatles back in the '60s who would otherwise not get any money", this tends to make people sceptical about whether authors/musicians stand to gain anything at all from those increases. (for an interesting read, see this worked out example of what might happen to a band that signed on a few years ago.)

Look at Britain, for instance, where this debate is currently being held: (although it's not much of a debate, since it seems that the govt/parliament could care less about what the side contra has to say) dozens if not hundreds of leading academics who research the effects of copyright from across Europe have co-signed a letter/report in which they state that an extension would be useless for the musicians, and would only benefit the record companies. Why is it that parliament seems to be ignoring them, rather than taking their arguments seriously?
While I'm sure this is not something that interests most downloaders, this in my mind casts a veil of distrustworthiness over the whole concept and purpose of copyright, seeing how only 4 big corporations would stand gain from it.
And while I'm not sure the same applies to publishing houses, it does say something for (or against) the institution of "copyright" as a whole.

We seem to have begun thinking that music is somehow essential to our lives, and constitutive of us, even though free access to recorded music is something that has existed (on this scale) for less than 30 years. This development puzzles me somewhat. While music is certainly fun to listen to, I can't say I really miss it if I can't listen to it for a day, nor would I call it an insult to my personal autonomy decreasing Quality of Life for me, like so many youngsters seem to think these days.