Canada, Japan Cave On Copyright Term Extension In TPP

An anonymous reader writes Last month, there were several Canadian media reports on how the work of Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, had entered the public domain. While this was oddly described as a "copyright quirk", it was no quirk. The term of copyright in Canada (alongside TPP countries such as Japan and New Zealand) is presently life of the author plus an additional 50 years, a term that meets the international standard set by the Berne Convention. Those countries now appear to have caved to U.S. pressure as there are reports that they have agreed to extend to life plus 70 years as part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Comments

US Pressure?

[snadrus]

The American people don't want this.
The music corporations are entirely non-US companies.
Copyrights are not beneficial to Search or Share Internet industries.
The only remaining beneficiary is the movie industry, a relatively small group of people.

Re:US Pressure?

[OrangeTide]

The music corporations are entirely non-US companies.

That doesn't mean these corporations don't have their hand up my government's ass, working its mouth like a puppet.

US not the only one

[jklovanc]

Further, the European Union initially demanded that Canada extend the term of copyright in the Canada – EU Trade Agreement, but that too was effectively rebuffed.

The EU wanted the extension too. Maybe the EU alone could not apply enough pressure but it looks like the EU and the US can. The US is such a good target but they are not the only bad actors.

PS. I am Canadian

Re:Copyright is Now Perpetual

[king neckbeard]

Because a house is rival while a novel in the abstract is non-rival. You can't have a million people occupying a house simultaneously, at least without great risk of damage and danger, but you can have a billion people reading the same book at the same time without the book or the people being harmed. The tragedy of the commons only applies to rival goods. That's why it's a good idea to remove 'intellectual property' from your vocabulary, because economically, the subjects of copyright and patents have completely different traits than physical objects.