Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Mexico to Abolish the Public Domain?

Posted by chrisd on from the formerly-free-country dept.

Anonymous Mexican Coward writes "The mexican congress is considering a revision of the copyright law. Among other changes the law will extend the term of copyright from life-plus-70 to life-plus-100, and at the end of that term, the mexican government has the right to charge royalties for works in the "public domain." Go Mexico! Check it out"

1 of 375 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Situational Irony by sebmol · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just because something becomes part of the public domain doesn't mean the prior owner has to release it to the public. Microsoft may very well hang onto the source code. However, if at that time somebody were to acquire a copy of that code or reverse-engineer it from the MS-DOS binaries, Microsoft couldn't sue them for copyright infringement.

    --
    "Light is faster than sound." - "Is that why people tend to look bright until you hear them speak?"