Quote:
Originally Posted by DaringNovelist
It's the DMCA that took things out of the realm of reality.
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I'd say the corporations had started that trend before the DCMA came along... but I agree, copyright law is being corrupted for corporate gain. I'm honestly not sure whether that is
entirely a bad thing--I don't see what difference it makes if I cannot make Mickey Mouse cartoons of my own, or buy "Steamboat Willie" for free--but I do believe in setting finite limits for copyright terms, and limiting the ability to purchase and extend rights beyond the original entities. IOW, maybe Disney can extend the rights to Mickey Mouse, since they created it, but they would not be able to buy up rights to, say, the Dumas classics, and extend them. And even if they offered me a billion dollars, and I was agreeable, their ability to purchase and extend my copyrights would be severely limited.
We could stand to see revised copyright laws that better fit the digital era, and enact some reasonable limits on how far copyright can be extended.