Quote:
Originally Posted by pdurrant
It's funny how in nearly 300 years of copyright law, no government has ever reduced the length of copyright. And so it's gone from 14 years to about 120 years.
|
I'll answer that more broadly. Copyright never seems to shrink, but patent has.
The reason is the when you lose a patent, your loss is balanced by the other people's patents that get made available to you for the same reason. The economic gains and losses tend to balance after the "new" has worn off over a few years.
When you lose a copyright, you don't get anything economic in return (or so it's perceived). So there is no counter-incentive to shorten copyright. Hence the wide difference today....