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Originally Posted by Kali Yuga
1) This line of logic does not explain why many nations, which afaik were not lobbied by Hollywood, have similarly long copyright terms (e.g. life + 50 or 70 years).
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Who do you think pressured them? They were "lobbied" by the US, who in turn was lobbied by Hollywood.
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2) Although life + 70 is fairly long, a truly indefinite term is a clear violation of the US Constitution; and the most recent extensions were reviewed with this in mind. I.e. I seriously doubt another extension to life + 90 would be considered viable, unless life expectancy increases from 70 to 100.
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Life plus anything is already ridiculous. However, you can't seriously believe they won't try to extend it again. Of course they will.
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3) Many of the books Google has scanned would not fall into PD any time soon. Lots of the authors are still alive and kicking.
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Whether the authors are still alive and kicking should have nothing to do with it. Before the perversion of copyright, the life of the author had nothing to do with when they would enter PD. That's the point.
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4) The result of Google's actions will not be even remotely equivalent to putting a book into PD.
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Of course not. But without the corporate sponsored extensions to copyright, many of those books would be in the PD, so Google, Project Gutenberg, etc... would have been allowed to do what they like with them.