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Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward
Hmmm. what is relevant? Copyright is dying. It was born from technology. it is dying from technology. My first post here (which I've forgotten how to find to link to) was a long description about this.
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I may resurrect that thread later, if I have a chance.
However I don't think copyright is going anywhere, nor should it (see above). DRM may or may not, but that's also a separate issue.
I concur that one should chastise and/or punish unethical corporations. It gets a bit problematic though when your ethical standards make it all but impossible for any company to behave in a moral fashion.
(There are also many people who do not even try to make any distinctions, and just loathe the mere idea of corporations and/or copyright.) Lobbying is far from a perfect system, but it is legal, and the desire to restrict it runs smack into our (yes, citizens' as well as organizations') legal right to participate in the electoral process.
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Originally Posted by RSE
When a piece of I.P. was created for a corporation, it was done under legal "rules of engagement", i.e. what copyright was at the time....
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True, but copyright laws have been revised several times, and put under legal review, so it looks like the extension process is legal / constitutional (in the US at least). If the contract specified that the rights are owned by the publisher for 50 years and then revert to the author, then you have a "time limit" which is contractually binding. I.e. I don't think the idea that "copyright extensions are violating the contract" hold up.
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Originally Posted by RSE
When corporations lobby for extension for sunk expenses, in order to continue to profit from I.P. that should go into the public domain, that's being unethical. It is stealing from the public, if you will.
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As a member of The Public
I'm not terribly put out by some of the extensions. Many of them actually make sense, since life expectancy and the ability to distribute content has grown significantly since the first copyright laws were established. If extension on extension keeps getting piled on, that will be problematic -- but at some point that process will violate the "limited time" principle and won't fly.
I also don't think that
everything needs to go into public domain; it really doesn't bother me that you can't legally make a t-shirt that depicts Mickey Mouse smoking a spliff (unless you're doing so as a satire or parody, which iirc is a form of protected speech). Offhand I don't know how you could draw the line, especially without creating a huge loophole. Either way, I don't view this as anywhere near as egregious an offense as failing to (or choosing not to) pay royalties to an artist.