Congress Is Looking To Extend Copyright Protection Term To 144 Years (wired.com)

"Because it apparently isn't bad enough already, Congress is looking to extend the copyright term to 144 years," writes Slashdot reader llamalad. "Please write to your representatives and consider donating to the EFF." American attorney Lawrence Lessig writes via Wired: Almost exactly 20 years ago, Congress passed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which extended the term of existing copyrights by 20 years. The Act was the 11th extension in the prior 40 years, timed perfectly to assure that certain famous works, including Mickey Mouse, would not pass into the public domain. Immediately after the law came into force, a digital publisher of public domain works, Eric Eldred, filed a lawsuit challenging the act [which the Supreme Court later rejected].

Twenty years later, the fight for term extension has begun anew. Buried in an otherwise harmless act, passed by the House and now being considered in the Senate, this new bill purports to create a new digital performance right -- basically the right to control copies of recordings on any digital platform (ever hear of the internet?) -- for musical recordings made before 1972. These recordings would now have a new right, protected until 2067, which, for some, means a total term of protection of 144 years. The beneficiaries of this monopoly need do nothing to get the benefit of this gift. They don't have to make the work available. Nor do they have to register their claims in advance.

Comments

Public Domain

[darkain]

In other words, "Public Domain" doesn't exist anymore.

Re:Public Domain

[olsmeister]

Sure it does. It just means that everything thing that is currently in the public domain is all that will ever be in the public domain.

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read existing laws. 2065 IS the term limit. Then flips to the std 95 year for anything after 1972. https://copyright.cornell.edu/... Scroll down to the sound recordings areas.

This 'law' would in effect do nothing that isn't already in place with common law. This is a do nothing law that we already have to deal with. Other than make it clear what is going on. Clarity in the law is best.

However, given all of that congress is missing an opportunity to actually make it 'harmonize' but instead picking the 2nd worst of the options. Basically they are doing nothing. At least not making it longer.

Re:Public Domain

[cascadingstylesheet]

Sure it does. It just means that everything thing that is currently in the public domain is all that will ever be in the public domain.

Might have a perversely positive effect. I already am reading lots of great old stuff since I won't pay for modern dreck.

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure it does. It just means that everything thing that is currently in the public domain is all that will ever be in the public domain.

Agreed. Anyone who votes for this ever in his lifetime is not qualified to be a servant of the people. No further test is required.

Put simply if a child can be born, live a long life, and die before something goes in public domain then you have effectively eliminated public domain. Combine that with DRM and such which makes even backing up video challenging, and most things will simply cease to exist, if some major company isn't maintaining the originals.

Of course for content companies they _want_ old work to cease to exist, since it makes it easier to charge for something similar to be made again.

If the want copyrights forever then they need at least to pay a princely sum for them. First ten years could be standard. Then every year for the next 10 a million bucks. After that double it to 20 million, then 40 million, then 80 million at 10 year intervals, paying every year. Eventually they won't be able to afford the payment and it goes public domain. That would stop some of this crap, and provide for some nice tax revenue.

Also, make sure they deposit unencumbered versions in original quality with the library of congress or similar.

Re:Public Domain

[rpresser]

Because YOU HAVE TO WORK TO KEEP A HOTEL IN OPERATION.

Or a golf course.

Or even a slum rental property.

But Mickey Mouse? The only work being done on that is paying lawyers to get copyright extended again.

Re:Public Domain

[Crashmarik]

Oh that's right, the ruling class (govt + business) can't stand the idea of working class (authors/musicians) making money forever off their work. They should always have their noses to the grindstone.

I was unaware that the working class had somehow managed to live forever. You also need to tell me how Walt Disney and Darth Mickey figure into this narrative of oppression.

Re: Public Domain

[bill_mcgonigle]

You say things like that as if Congressman aren't bought-and-paid-for, with legislation going to the highest bidder. Talk about living in a Land of Make Believe.

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

Spoken like someone who's never owned or maintained a house, nevermind a hotel...

Re:Public Domain

[scottrocket]

Because YOU HAVE TO WORK TO KEEP A HOTEL IN OPERATION.

Or a golf course.

Or even a slum rental property.

But Mickey Mouse? The only work being done on that is paying lawyers to get copyright extended again.

Mod parent up, for 144 years. I wish my properties were maintenance free...

Re: Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no servants of the people. Both parties have sold out to banks and corporations. They think you are a slave to be milked for all value until you die. Clinton, Obama, Trump? Despite their superficial differences and the emotional seizures that some people are having, there is no significant difference in their goals.

Re: Public Domain

[Bing Tsher E]

'Clinton' is a dead political dynasty. 'Obama' is an ex-president (like dubya and jimmycarter). Why throw them up there like anything that will ever matter again?

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

The irony is that the bill is sponsored by Senator Christopher A. Coons of Delaware, a man who literally just voted to restore Net Neutrality laws. His voting record seems to conflict at an ideological level.

Re: Public Domain

[Bing Tsher E]

You're kidding, right? Go out, then, and find some HVAC guys to maintain your hotel at minimum wage. We'll watch.

Re:Public Domain

[The Grim Reefer]

Does it matter? My cost as a hotel owner would be to pay minimum wage to some worker that cleans the room and the toilet, changes the sheet, towels, soaps etc. I would be delegating the work... not doing it myself.

What other cost is there in maintenance? The maintenance cost seems quite tiny compared to the hotel itself.

It's not that I'm not agreeing with you in principle, but you really have no clue at all. The upkeep and maintenance on any property is not cheap, and a commercial property even more so.

Property taxes are not low on commercial properties in most places. Parking lots have to be repaved regularly, roofs need to be replaced, unless it's a mom and pop hotel, it will need to be remodeled every 10 years or so.

Insurance premiums ain't cheap. People flood bathrooms and fall asleep while smoking in rooms that they shouldn't be smoking in. So then there's all of legal and collections crap that takes lawyers and other people to deal with.

If you think you have a high utility bill in the summer or winter, just imagine what it costs in electricity for a hotel. Water usage it also considerable. You also have heater/AC units in every room. They break and need to be fixed and replaced. Beds need to be replaced frequently, carpet wears out. Maintenance men and grounds keepers need to be paid as well as equipment.

As far as I know, all Hilton type hotels have at least a breakfast service. So a kitchen needs expensive equipment, which again need to be maintained/fixed. Staff is needed to prepare, serve and clean up. I would guess a lot of food gets thrown out as well.

Basically think of all of the expenses you have at home, but times a couple hundred. Plus the cost of having someone clean your house, mow the grass and trim the bushes, cook the meals, fix all of the shit that gets broken and worn out (but faster because it's higher traffic and no one gives a damn about it), etc.

If owning and running a hotel worked the way you seem to think, I'd go buy or build one tomorrow. But it's not some simple one time cost and it just rakes in money type of situation.

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

If businesses and real estate can be owned indefinitely, and passed down to heirs forever, why can't IP be passed down as well for infinity?

It can't be passed down to infinity in the USA because the Constitution states "for a limited time".
Article 1, Section 8:
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

So it looks like Congress will have to go with "infinity minus one".

Re:Public Domain

[ravenshrike]

Oh how funny, you seem to think that there aren't just as many big businesses supporting net neutrality as opposing it.

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the US is working hard to outlaw their own public domain, the citizens should go out of their way to tap into other countries' public domains. The US has been working hard to strong-arm everyone else, but they haven't had total success there yet.

"No sir, it's OK, there's no copyright infringement. I'm reading/watching/listening to the <other country> edition. That one's in the public domain."

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

Double a million bucks is not 20 million bucks no matter how you count it!

Re: Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but arguing that a limited time can be perpetually extended even when it's already longer than the life span of the oldest people on record is ridiculous.

It should have been set aside as unconstitutional last time it was being appealed.

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, I'm Tardchris! Have you bought a "I'm fat. Let's party." shirt? This is Slashdot, after all.

Re:Public Domain

[nmb3000]

So they created a limited term for copyright term -- to prevent creative people from becoming too wealthy.

There is no innate right to copyright, perpetual or otherwise. For that matter there is also no innate right to own property. In both cases society has decided how we want to handle these things.

For physical things like property, it's pretty straightforward that only one person can control a rock, or a piece of land. We're limited by the laws of physics that prevent me from just making a perfect physical duplicate of your hotel that occupies the exact same physical space and renting rooms.

When it comes to copyright, there is no "thing" that is owned. Nothing prevents me from making a verbatim copy of a book, or a picture, or duplicating a collection of digital bits. It is solely a social construct that says "Billy is granted special exclusive rights for a limited time". It's not because Billy is special, or gifted, or even expected to do anything with it. In the US it is specifically "to encourage, by proper premiums & Provisions, the advancement of useful knowledge and discoveries." A tit-for-tat.

But frankly, for the last 50 years it's been all tit and no tat. And not the good kind of tit.

Re: Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

So where is the money coming from this time? Historically it has been Disney. Is that still the case here?

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

Mickey is a *MOUSE*, not a house.

Re:Public Domain

[Mandrel]

Are you arguing against the legitimacy of passive investment income like intellectual property and interest income, or only against long copyright terms? What term would you consider optimal?

The Constitution of the Soviet Union didn't contain the socialist declaration "to each according to his needs" but instead "to each according to his work", associating reward with effort. Are you arguing along these lines, or are you more inclined to the capitalist "to each according to his deployment assets", where a government should protect the (inheritable) asset of intellectual property against confiscation for a long period.

Don't get indignant, I'm just being a devil's advocate.

Re: Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

At least you have properties. .

Re:Public Domain

[LostMyBeaver]

Let's assume you were a congressperson. How exactly would you get into this position?

Let's assume you start as a servant of the people. You became so pissed off that you wanted to stand up for yourself and those around you. So you're going to become a politician and make America great again. You know that to do this, you would need to be in a position of power. Being in the state senate or a mayor isn't going to change anything you seem to care about. You need a seat in the house, the senate, the presidency or to become a supreme court justice.

I think the supreme court is out because it's reserved for lawyers.

I think the presidency is out because it's reserved for reality TV show people.

You're down to rising through the ranks to the house or the senate.

Before you start, you should sit and read a few books you thoroughly ignored in primary and secondary school. You should learn how the government is designed and how it is built. You should choose the house or the senate and then you should study what your job responsibilities should be as well as study strategies that could be used to make a difference while in the office. You should also consider taking a few night courses on law to better understand how the laws passed by the government are used and enforced from a practical perspective.

You should choose most importantly whether you want to be a person who presents new laws, someone who simply exercises a vote, or someone who will attempt to influence the votes of others in favor or against proposals from others.

As someone presenting new laws, you need to amass huge amounts of political capitol in a very expensive power struggle. You'll need sponsors to help you. Of course you can't take gifts or payments, even harmless ones like guns from the NRA. Instead, you would need to ask some political powerhouse to make A LOT of noise for you. To pay for this, you'll have to agree to do something for them.

As someone exercising a vote, you will be paid with political capitol. Your "peers" will be calling you and vetting you and trying to get that vote they need from you. Of course, you don't want anything from them and therefore you'll gain no capitol. You'll just vote in a way that will help with this one issue. Of course, you don't give a shit whether the salt flats of Utah should be swept and you can't be bothered to research whether it's even a good idea. In fact, because you're now in D.C. you have extremely limited access to resources or freedoms you could have used earlier to research it. You have a black tie dinner you absolutely have to attend because some other law you do actually care about is trying to build enough political capitol to be passed and if you don't stand with the group you support on this, it won't have any hope of passing.

As someone hoping to be a power broker and influence votes, you'll spend most every second on the hill getting support from companies, your peers, etc... you'll need to throw parties which cost money. You'll need to get those sponsored through channels which aren't considered conflicts of interest. You'll need to get in front of cameras and you'll need the right clothing, etc...

Ok, so now that you're learning the ropes and you have a plan of where you want to be to represent the people best, you'll have to figure out how to get there.

You learn that pretty much anyone can run for office. In fact, you don't even have to run to get into office, the people just have to vote for you. So that's easy enough... you just need to get the people to vote for you... and remember it's critical you don't sell your soul to get there. You want to get to Washington with no major political capitol owed.

So... what are your options.

1) Latch onto a power broker who will back you as opposed to their normal horse. If you use this guy, you're nothing more than his puppet and you'll have already failed.

2) Join a political party and gain their backing and support for running. Remember they'll generall

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

How much taxes are paid just for owning IP? Because for some of these "indefinite" things, you do.

And teachers would love to be paid everytime you use something you learned from them. Plumbers, every time you use your faucet. Mechanics, your car. Etc.

Re: Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

Might as well just make it endless

Re: Public Domain

[LostMyBeaver]

I hated GWB as president. His dad too. But have you seen interviews with GWB afterwards?

I've come to realize he was one of the nicest people I've ever heard of. If there's such a thing as an angel... imagine GWB as a smiling cherubic flying baby with a halo and a diaper. He was truly one of the nicest people EVER to step into that office. And if love and care counts for anything, he was possibly the greatest man ever to step into that office.

Oh... and he's a nitwit.

I just can't bring myself to call him hurtful names like Dubya anymore.

A bunch of big bad people like Cheney used him as their meal ticket to get into the power position and they let him stand there helpless in front of the American people as they jammed a carrot up his ass and made his lips move.

We talked about having Bush and others court martialed. The truth is, Cheney and the others should be court martialed for child abuse which is basically what they did to GWB. Cheney would walk into GWBs office and offer him a Werther's Original and gently ask him to drop to his knees.

Be nice to GWB... he really tried his best. He was absolutely horrible at the job, but he really really really tried his best. More often than not, he managed to color within the lines with his crayons.

And I hope someday to have a beer with the guy and tell him I was truly wrong to say so many bad things about him while he was president. I didn't truly grasp his situation until he left office and was able to speak more comfortably... without all the campaigning and saving face.

Re: Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess it's 1 million per year for 10 years, then 2 a year for another 10 years, that makes 20 millions for the second decade

Re: Public Domain

[bool2]

Thanks for the explantation of how politics works in the USA. For a Brit it's very useful! Money really is everything in the USA. I think your Constitution needs a rewrite. (Not that we don't have our own problems!)

Re: Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

I had always said of shrub that he seemed like the sort of man you'd happily be friends with, if it weren't for his family. They give him the position of president.Without his family connections, he'd be a burger flipper and nice to know.

With the proviso that someoene who tells jokes and laughs as a person is hanged in front of him is not entirely nice no matter what else they do.

Re:Public Domain

[houghi]

So if I am a rich company I can afford it, I can pay it, but if I am some poor singer-songwriter, they can just use it to sell soap after 10 years?

No, just no. What need to happen is that it stops after 10 years, period. No extension for anybody or anything. However there is a downside of this and that will upset a lot of people, so here it goes:
This could mean the end of series like the Marvel Universe or the repeated Star Wars movies. They would have to come up with new ideas all the time.
It would also mean that a song goes into public domain faster and that other performers might make a better version of it and we have to listen to that.
The people who will be upset with it are the people that own the studios, so there are not that many. We should still be aware that they won't be able to buy that new condo every year. Think of them. Think of them as long as they think about you.

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

you are completely clueless if you think that is all the expenses, those particular expenses you listed are the rounding errors in costs. Building maintenance like AirCon and heating, electrical, plumbing and general building maintenance will make those cleaning costs seem like chump change. On top of that you have the property and company taxes, insurance, marketing and advertising etc etc.

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

If businesses and real estate can be owned indefinitely, and passed down to heirs forever, why can't IP be passed down as well for infinity?

You have not understood the difference between tangible assets and intangible assets. Please read up on this and come back.

(waiting)

Are you back now? Good. Now that you are a bit more informed you can see that if you take a tangible asset from someone, they no longer have it. We call this stealing. This is universally understood as bad in the general case. Also, if you try to steal something from me I can protect myself from theft and if you get hurt while trying to steal, it I have not attacked you, I have acted in self-defense, within reasonable limits. The laws around this is easy to understand, even for children.

As for intangible assets, like copyrighted work, there is nothing inherent in it that grants you these rights. If someone uses your work, you still have access to it. It is not gone. Also, it is harder to detect someone unlawfully using it, etc. This made it hard for content creators back then, before the copyright. Essentially, you wrote a piece of music and I played it and got money for it without compensating you. Many musicians and artists back in the day had patrons paying your upkeep to be able to enjoy your music. It was hard to be an artist. And the incentive to create was low. This is bad. We want creation of new works.

So, society (that is we people) decided to band together to protect the poor artists. We said "let us help with making sure that only YOU get to use your work". But we also recognized that every work has been influenced by other work that has come before. So if we deny future artists this back catalog, again we would stifle creation.

So, we said, "in return for helping you make sure that only you get to use your work, we want this protection to be time-limited. After a number of years, where only you may profit from it, it becomes public domain. And then everyone can use it to create new and wonderful things."

I like this spirit of copyright. I want content creators to be able to make a living. The earnings they make during this time can be handed down to their heirs if they want. But I also want things to spread and be used, modified and changed when the time is right.

So let's get back to your totally inappropriate analogy. A business or real estate requires further investment just to keep existing. You cannot sit on your ass and expect money to roll in automagically. They are tangible assets. If you don't renovate your real estate it eventually crumbles and fall down. In this case it might even be confiscated by the local government in most places since it is neglected/abandoned and a public danger. A business not attended will eventually go bankrupt (if they have any bills needed to be paid) or just not generate any money (and thus, those heirs wont get a dime).

Do you understand why copyright is not the same as property rights now? Good. There are other intangible assets too (trademarks and patents for example). They work in other ways than copyright and should not be confused with each others.

Now that you know much more, cut the shit with "the ruling class vs the working class". I definitely belong to the latter, but I want reasonable copyright. 144 years is NOT reasonable. No living person, nor their children, and most likely their grand-children, will ever see something created fall into the public domain and thus see derivative works created from it. If this is not stagnating the rate of creativity, I don't know what is.

Some might say: "so what, there are enough of creativity anyway". Perhaps, but consider something like the comic "Fables" by Bill Willingham. It is a wonderful modern take on how the fables of yesterday (Snow White, Big bad wolf, Cinderella, Pinocchio, etc) live today. All those are in the public domain which means that Willingham could use them. Heck, Disney have started their empire on the shoulders of many of these pub

Re:Public Domain

[rworne]

I think the reason Disney always gets mentioned is that every time Steamboat Wille gets close to going into the public domain, Congress adds another extension to the copyright.

That's what happened last time this came up. There was a big fight brewing over this, Sonny Bono - a former entertainer, ex-husband of Cher, and then a politician, wrapped himself around a tree at a ski slope and died. They then attached his name to the legislation and got it passed. The other name for the legislation was the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act" - because it was quite clear on why exactly they were passing this and why they were in such a rush to do so.

Re: Public Domain

[rworne]

This went to the SCOTUS, and they said that it was constitutional as long as they did not grant copyright in perpetuity, they can keep on extending piecemeal it as long as they want to.

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

So if I am a rich company I can afford it, I can pay it, but if I am some poor singer-songwriter, they can just use it to sell soap after 10 years?

No, just no. What need to happen is that it stops after 10 years, period.

If you can get that, then great. If not, I'll take the one with doubling costs over the 144 year one. The one with doubling cost will insure that it eventually hits public domain, unless of course the currency halves in value over those time spans, so better index it to inflation.

Just an fyi, 10,20,40,80,160,320,640,1280,2560,5120,10240
so After 110 years it would be at 10.2 billion to renew. If disney wanted their copyright that badly, then I'd let them keep it. Of course it would double again in another 10 years..

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

All men have an inalienable right to property, life, liberty, by virtue of God or natural law. It's just that many governments abuse these inalienable rights. Most will tell you that you do not have these rights. Men want to live rather than die, live as they see fit, not as someone else would have them live, and they want to enjoy that which they have acquired. It in our DNA. You can ignore it, but it is still there.

Re: Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

I just watched a televised event where everyone sang "God save the queen." I'll take our financially driven American system over your bloodline based system any day.

Re: Public Domain

[phantomfive]

Wtf are you talking about? He started two wars and you call him an angel? I'm open to your viewpoint but you'll need more supporting facts than what you have, which is none.

Re:Public Domain

[JaredOfEuropa]

The biggest deception in this debate was the invention of the term "intellectual property". Copyright was created for the same reason that patents were set up: to encourage creators and inventors to publish and share their work for the benefit of society, not by turning their work into property, but by granting them a temporary monopoly on their work that allows them to make a living. The arrangement was primarily for the benefit of society; the revenues were meant to convince the author to publish instead of sit on their creation or not even bothering to create it in the first place. And the arrangement was always meant to be temporary, something that was apparently even set down in the US constitution.

There's no reason to extend copyright beyond the life of the author. Copyright exists to encourage that author to publish more, but when the author is gone, there's no one to encourage. There is ZERO benefit to society in keeping copyright beyond the life of the author, or even a negative benefit: look at how some heirs continue to meddle with whatever others choose to do with the material (see: Tolkien estate). Maybe the idea that copyright doesn't pass down to his heirs will dissuade an author from doing his best, but personally I find that a rather far-fetched notion. The heirs are still welcome to whatever fortune the author made from his works during his lifetime, but they have no rights to the works themselves.

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

There you are spamming amazon and youtube affiliate links with yet another fake account, you revenue stream hogging disgusting fat sexist tube of lard, Christopher Dale Reimer!

You can be sure I will be watching this fake account too. I know this is you because you told me you were working on your freepass 11 file server and you are so dumb that you can't even masquerade yourself properly.

Now, I told you I was out of meds last week and you didn't even care to contact me you lazy fucker.

How many times do I have to express the emergency of the situation??????

The python click script you wrote for my pheromone revenue stream web site suddenly stopped to work!!!!!!

You fucking incompetent python script writer!!!

When it works, I get 4000+ clicks a day on my pheromone revenue stream web site but only 5 or 6 without it!!!!

Now, it seems like you dont care and that you have abandoned me you heartless fucking pig!

Bonus:
Here is a story that creimer told me when convincing me what a hard life he had:

The tree was him and the tree knot was his butt hole!

So, his uncle packed his fat ass with lard and with his cock! Not that it makes much of a difference but anyway, there it is!

Signed:
Ethell, The girl that used to love you and now hates you, burn in hell where you belong you sexist pig!

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem pretty smart. What about sortition as an alternative?

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sure it does. It just means that everything thing that is currently in the public domain is all that will ever be in the public domain."

I wish I had those rose tinted glasses that you have. Give them another couple years and they'll start demanding retroactive extensions into the past as well. (Like I believe they've done once before.)

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

They also have to work ... all that bri..., I mean, lobbying doesn't come cheap!

Re: Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was a stupid kid I'd have thought you were just being cool and cynical. Lately I've discovered that this is a very scary world we live in. :(

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no reason to extend copyright beyond the life of the author.

That depends. Do you mean, for example, if copyright lasts a default of 14 years with options to keep extending it every 14 years, and the author dies 1 year after initial publication, the copyright would immediately expire? Or it would continue on for 13 more years and then expire? Because I do not see a problem with letting the first "block" ride out whether the author is alive or dead.

Re: Public Domain

[reanjr]

I think it's fair to say at least one of those wars was started by Saudi-backed terrorists with material support from Pakistani intelligence services.

Re: Public Domain

[reanjr]

Yeah, people who think money is everything in politics are always the ones confused when people like Trump get elected over the much better funded Clinton campaign. An order of magnitude more money might flip an election, but otherwise it's more to do with regional economics and wedge issues, and traditional values like good looks and charisma.

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

If Hilton Hotel heirs can live off their hotels' income for a thousand years, why can't Elvis' heirs do the same?

That's been execellently answered:

Because YOU HAVE TO WORK TO KEEP A HOTEL IN OPERATION.

But there's also this: Copyrights were never ment for a dead artist's heirs.

Copyrights were ment for the benefit of the people. Don't believe me, read the American Constitution, it's right in there. That's right, they were not envisioned as free money passes for corporations. Nor were they envisioned to keep anyone down. They were ment to make it so the creator could get some monies for his work so he could get more work done so as to benefit the people. It's not for the heirs. It's not for international corporations or other non-creating rights-holding entities. It's not even for the creator, he just benefits so he can create more. It's ultimately for the people.

Pretty much the same with patents, which stand still at twenty years, but which have been horribly extended and twisted into abuse in different ways. Same deal, different playground. Both exellent examples of the power of lobbyist abuse.

Re: Public Domain

[ItsJustAPseudonym]

I think GP's last paragraph was indeed in the spirit of make-believe wishful thinking. It would take a frikking miracle for it to happen.

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

Entropy of the 1% wants all social changes in the last century to return to the good ole days of kings and princes.
The events of history is based on labor free income, for the 1%, or 0.01%, ad infinitum. Most of taxation is based on income for a few leeches, not much is used for the common welfare of the citizens.
Wars are, and have been, fought for the right of taxation since the beginning.
Patents and copyrights are property. Copyrights require little manufacturing, compared to patents, and are the perfect property for taxing the pee-ons.
Whats good for the 0.1% is bad for everyone, including the 0.1%, they just to narrow minded to realize this.

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

to encourage creators and inventors to publish and share their work for the benefit of society.

And what are the rest of the 7 billion people on earth doing for the benefit of society? Nothing, they're making money and spending it on themselves and their families. Forced charity is illegal, it's theft. Are you donating a significant portion of your paycheck to poor people around the world? I doubt it.

Charles Dickens' novels still make a lot of money. But thanks to the theft called limited copyright protection, the estate of Dickens does not see a dime whereas publishers are making a lot of money selling hardcovers of his novels.

Re: Public Domain

[Wycliffe]

If Hilton Hotel heirs can live off their hotels' income for a thousand years, why can't Elvis' heirs do the same?

That shouldnâ(TM)t be allowed either. Perpetual wealth will eventually destroy the USA. We need to bring back the estate tax and not allow perpetual corporations to gobble up the world.

Re: Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

Not necessarily. Laws have been passed in the past that brought things that were in the public domain back into exclusive ownership. The constitution says cingress can grant monopolies for âoelimited timesâ which fools in the supreme court and legislature conveniently interpret as meaning stuff can go in and out of public domain.

Re: Public Domain

[backslashdot]

Until they claw back the public domain stuff too. Do you think they are going to sit by and let you not buy their stuff?

They may not even need to purchase any laws. I mean, try making a Snow White movie and see if Disney doesnâ(TM)t deploy a team of lawyers on you.

Re: Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

They are obviously against you read old stuff thatâ(TM)s why this law makes the copyright extension automatic. Meaning if you find an old work that is great .. you cant use it because you wont know where the heck the author is â" since violating copyright is criminal they can come for you even if there is no estate or author to sue you. This prevents you from accessing a vast array of prior art .. which means you have to rely on what the existing players tell you.

Re:Public Domain

[Dread_ed]

The extension of copyright law is merely the codification of our current government and economic system's goals, namely maintaining the current order through stagnation and direct control of "progress."

The public domain is intentionally impoverished, the creative space is blocked at every turn, regulations designed to make things work are turned into a defense system of how things *currently* work. Change, advancement, and competition are the enemies of the status quo and must be destroyed.

Oppression shows up in many forms. This is just another form of it that the 99% will complain about while the 1% takes the ball and heads back to their mansion. It's not their ball to take, but you spineless weaklings are so busy fighting each other over the rules of the game and who did what to whom last game that you don't even realize the ball is gone, the game is over, and none of it even maters.

In short, I advocate for a level of meta-cognition which places this attack on the electorate in the proper context. It is a barrier to entry erected by those who already have what is ours. It is paying someone else rent for something you own outright. It is taxation by a corporate entity without representation. It is just another power structure playing the "how far can we push their heads into this giant pile of rancid shit?" game and still being surprised at how pliant and cooperative you fools are.

I used to imagine how awesome it would be when my fellow Americans realized how they are being intentionally controlled with employment uncertainty, artificial economic restriction, de facto taxation, and frozen into ossified classes by our government puppets and the corporations and money changers who own them. Reality has set in and I am terrified to learn I am surrounded by planarians. You feel pain and can only see your fellow planarians to vent your anger and aggression on, never even comprehending there are powers and forces above you which are responsible for your pain. The only people you will hurt when you rise up are the people just like you, the ones under the thumb of the oppressors just like you are. You'll sing the praises of your oppressors, savaging your brothers and sisters mercilessly in the name of your tormentors, and returning to the abuses of your masters begging for more pain and subjugation.

And I have to watch it all play out, predictable, excruciating, and unavoidable. Thanks y'all, you have turned the great experiment into a sitcom.

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

> All men have an inalienable right to property, life, liberty, by virtue of God or natural law.

A very Enlightenment point of view. However, from the scientific point of view (biological, ecological, thermodynamic) you have none of those rights.

The stark reality is that if you want property, you have to take it or trade for it or fight for it. If you want life, you have no choice but to take the lives of other living things (unless you're a carrion eater). If you want liberty, you have to defend yourself from everything trying to kill you.

'Natural law' as you view it is trumped by physics, chemistry, and thermodynamics.

Re:Public Domain

[luther349]

i think each work needs to file for the extension on its own. that would let the stuff nobody gives a crap about go into the puplic wile they can keep there mouse forever.

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

>Agreed. Anyone who votes for this ever in his lifetime is not qualified to be a servant of the people.

Congressmen are the servants of the lobbyists. You pay to play. That said, it's completely broken and the whole purpose was SUPPOSED to be a servant to the people. If you want to fix this a bit, make it illegal to accept any gifts or cash aside from congressional salary.

Re: Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an examome of millions so easily led by the nose by propaganda. Why did you think him a nitwit? Because you were told so. Why do you belueve what you currently believe? Because you believe what you're told to believe. Why do you believe the opposite this week of what you believed last week? Because you were told to believe the opposite this week. I've watched this for 30 years. What's one of the most obvious signs of a person who doesn't think for themselves but instead believes what he's told to believe week by week? Anyone who parrots that any Republican President is a nitwit. That's the first line of propaganda thrown out each time and the first to be believed by people who don't think for themselves. The second is that they and their advisors are the evil boogeyman. How adults can be so childlike in having others tell them week by week what to believe has been such a disappointment.

Re:Public Domain

[wisnoskij]

Mickey Mouse is a bad example for this. He is currently not only Disney's mascot, but their logo. If Mickey Mouse was in the public domain than 99.99999999% of all work done with him after that point would be shady companies trying to sell products that look like they are official Disney merchandise. Honestly, the world is probably a better place without hundreds of thousands of knockoff theme parks, movies, t shirts, and plushies designed to trick consumers.

In practice all of these things would probably remain illegal based on trademark violations, and if not that fraud, but with it theoretically being possible to create works featuring Mickey Mouse legally it makes it a huge uphill battle for justice to prevail in these cases.

Perhaps it makes sense to take away their control over his early content. My all means, make every film/tv show produced over 80 years ago free and legal to copy.

Re: Public Domain

[Raenex]

You're a fool. Bush is a politician. He lies for a living.

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting as Anonymous Coward, because I have already modded one or two posts

I am against long copyright terms, because they make the intent of the constitution âoeTo promote the progress of science and useful arts..." meaningless. Only if the "writings and discoveries" fall into the public domain after a reasonable time, they will optimally promote the progress of science and useful arts.

About the best term:
I think the original term of 14 + 14 years (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law_of_the_United_States)
was reasonable, because 28 years are a long term to get revenue out of your work. Most material goods are used up in some way after 28 years, why should authors get more?
Also, in most cases revenue from the work has decreased a lot after 28 years anyway. What remains is the interest of the public in archiving it for future generations.

Eric Flint of Baen Books, who is an author himself, has argued for 40 years so an author who had success in his early career could still continue producing works at old age, without worrying about paying the rent. But even Eric Flint did not argue for multi-generation terms of copyright, even if it might be nice for his heirs.

Re: Public Domain

[astrojetsonjr]

As someone that lives in Delaware, I always considered Joe Biden to be one of our greatest Senators. He had Delaware and American in mind as he did things. He was a huge asset. Senator Coons is just a ass. He's been involved with three other stupid bills. And I'm equally surprised to see Senator Booker of NJ as a co-Senator on this. I guess it's true that the two of them will be running for President, since they are clearly on the pander trail. Please Coons, stop bringing shame on the First State.

Re:Public Domain

[Mandrel]

While a strong case can be made that short patent terms help progress, the case is weaker for the copyright of artworks, which can be used as inspiration without infringement, plus some remixing when fair use and compulsory licencing is also law.

I agree that there is a cut-off time when society has more right to ownership than distant descendants, but what about when copyright is owned by immortal corporations?

Re: Public Domain

[LostMyBeaver]

First of all... I like the guy now... I'm not calling him a nitwit as a cruelty. It's like when I look at my teenaged daughter and realize she's the most beautiful thing in the world to me but am glad that her attention to personal hygiene as opposed math, science and art will probably make it so I won't have to worry about boyfriends for a while longer. It's a simple assessment.

Watch the interviews with him and hear what he really has to say. Especially the interviews post-presidency. He is a GOOD PERSON but he actually entered office believing that simply being a good person would make it so that the Americans wouldn't be mean to him. I mean, he honestly seems utterly confused as to why people would say bad things about him. Almost like a child.

I believe strongly that while he was in office, no matter what decision he was presented, if it was done in the most positive light, he was likely to be malleable. If decisions were kept simple for him and presented in a clear white hat/black hat way, he would choose the white hat way.

Don't mistake me, when you vote, you generally always know (except this time) that when you vote republican, you're voting for the cabinet who is choosing their visible representative to present the team in the most positive way. This is one of the reasons that Reagan would sit during the trials and say "I can neither confirm or deny the allegations" and the reason is simple, the cabinet was making the decisions and using a friendly personality that people would genuinely want to like to present them to the people.

When you vote democrat, you're choosing an individual who would need to pay back a lot of favors they owned from working their way into office. This is why you can get a really nice guy like Obama who fills the entire White House with RIAA and MPAA lawyers as his legal staff. Then when the cabinet makes decisions, the president has to stand up and knowingly do what he's told because that was part of the deal.

GWB took a beating because he had Cheney pulling his strings and Cheney was not a good person. He never even pretended to be one. Just as GWB was not a smart person an he genuinely never pretended to be one.

If you need any proof of GWB's brains follow a timeline.

GWB, the son of an oil man and upcoming politician attended Yale from 1964 to 1968. His father won his seat to the house in 1966.
GWB studied at Harvard from 1973 to 1975. His father has just served as Nixon's ambassador to the UN and had then become the chairman of the Republican National Committee making him one of the most influential men in Washington.

Bush graduated Yale with a 2.35 GPA. He never received an A and one professor even gave him a D. When interviewed on the topic, he would joke about being bad at school (http://www.foxnews.com/story/2001/05/21/self-deprecating-bush-talks-to-yale-grads.html)

Keep in mind that he studied history at Yale. An undergraduate degree in history is not particularly demanding. It's not until you study for a masters or Ph.D. in history that you have a lot of stiff requirements. Depending on how seriously you take it, a bachelor in history can be extremely useful or it can be a fluff degree. As it's very popular among the rich and famous, I'll let you decide what is more likely for a guy who managed to pull a C.

Let's also consider that if your father is rich and powerful, and I would never ever suggest that Yale would ever do something of the sort, but if your father is rich and powerful, your professors most likely would prefer not to receive a phone call about having given a D or F to the son of said person. But again, he never once got a single A as a grade... not even on the easy classes.

GWB tried to enter law school, but was turned down to University of Texas School of Law. We're not talking about Ivy League here. A millionaire son of the ambassador to the UN was turned down for a slot in a state school's law program. We're talking about LAW!!! a field of study where earning brownie points with

Re: Public Domain

[LostMyBeaver]

Seriously... watch him and try to do it with less of a focus on him as a politician. Watch interviews with him as a person.

Is it that he lies like a politician or is it that he was never given enough information to be able to lie? I'm simply not convinced in his case. I can't tell for sure.

Re: Public Domain

[LostMyBeaver]

I wrote some more on it below to an AC about why I feel Bush wasn't the sharpest spoon in the drawer. So I'll avoid reiterating.

What I will repeat is my stance about the differences between the political parties (with the exception of the current administration)

The republican party works as a team to establish a cabinet of power wielders and power brokers with something of a common compatible message. The are built of representatives of businesses, churches, special interests groups and they often even believe what they're selling. They then hold primaries to test the people to identify who will have the best chances of conveying their message to the people (friend or foe) and also to gain enough traction to make it into office. As you've heard many times, the GOP doesn't actually have to choose what the people vote for in the primaries. That's not their purpose. It's just a practical means of polling.

The democratic party generally takes people who decide to work up through the ranks. They gather the strength they need from around them. They make friends, coalitions, partnerships, and of course co-dependencies. Where the republicans have individual cabinet members making promises and owing favors, the democrats instead do this as individuals and as they gain power and favor, they progress through the ranks, but at the cost of owing all those around them. We saw this with Sanders vs. Clinton. It will probably never be made clear what happened here, but I believe that Sanders must have been pushed out because Clinton was willing to make more promises with compromises.

To a certain extent, the republican system makes more sense. The GOP found a great work around for the term-limits. If the power resides with the cabinet as opposed to the president, then it doesn't really matter who the president is so long as the voters chose their party. The cabinet will simply roll from one republican president to the next to the next. This is why you see that Reagan, Bush and Bush's presidencies were so similar.

Another thing which is obvious in this case is that in order for the GOP cabinet to maintain their power, it's important to have a president that is the perfect balance of being loved by the people and being simple enough to "control" and I don't like the term control, but I couldn't find a better word. Maybe mold or bendable... I'm not sure.

The idea is that the president should never have to lie. If he is kept only informed enough to stay on message and share himself with the people as one of them, that's a perfect thing.

He of course will make decisions. But the decisions he'll be given to make is "Mr. President. If we do this, it would be good, but if we do this other thing, it would be bad. You choose sir". And this way he could honestly sit in front of the people and say "I made the decision to...."

This is not a bad system. Most every election, people are not voting for the power and decision makers. They are voting for the face of the person who will represent the power and decision makers while sitting in the oval office. Why shouldn't the president be little more than a puppet. If anything, it probably would be better than someone who makes unilateral decisions with no advice from the experts they have available to them within the same house... and posting them on twitter.

Did Bush start two wars... hmmm...

Ok... Bush made the decision twice.

One time he was told "Bad people did bad things to us. If we don't want them to do more bad things to us, we have to do bad things to them. It's not an easy choice Mr. President, but if you choose to do bad things to them, at least we can stop them from hurting Americans. It's your choice sir"

The other time he was told "A bad man is doing bad things to people we don't even like. But more importantly, he's trying to make nuclear bombs to make it so we can never keep those people safe from him again later. If you choose to, we can get that bad man out of power before he can make the bad weapons th

Re: Public Domain

[Raenex]

Link to an interview, then. But just because he comes off friendly in person years out of office doesn't mean he'd tell you his darkest secrets as a politician. I recall seeing a documentary on Bush/Kerry, that delved into their backgrounds, and Bush was a lot craftier than people give him credit for. The "guy I'd like to have a beer with" is a persona.

Re:Public Domain

[lsatenstein]

This is an American Phenomenon. The rest of the world will not comply, or just prevent those American copyrighted items from being available in the rest of the world.

And they should penalize the copyright holder for ensuring that his copyrighted items do not leave continental United States, or Hawaii or Alaska.

Re:Public Domain

[Cinnamon Beige]

So if I am a rich company I can afford it, I can pay it, but if I am some poor singer-songwriter, they can just use it to sell soap after 10 years?

I'd think it very safe to say that if you're a poor singer-songwriter, either you've spent way too much of the money your song has made on drugs or they'd probably not have even bothered using your song if it wasn't out of copyright--it wouldn't be worth spending actual money on.

You can also have the first renewals be pretty much token fees--payments made basically to show that you are still the owner of this intellectual property (to prevent the current problems caused by unclear ownership of IP), and that it's still worth at least a small amount of money to you. The latter end--say, anything past 75 years--might have a "Offered for sale for 1 year/until 1,000 copies are sold, whichever happens second" and "Copy maintained in good condition" as a requirement in addition to the higher fees.

If Disney wants an eternal copyright on Mickey Mouse--let them. Let them pay into the public coffers steadily increasing amounts of money to do it, instead of bribing politicians to just keep extending the copyright period for everybody. .

Re: Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

It was adapted into a movie four times in 2012, one of which made $400 million at the box office.

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

Mickey wouldn't be public domain, Steamboat Willie would. Mickey Mouse is copyrighted and trademarked, the difference being that the trademark will last as long as it's being used commercially and the brand is sufficiently protected from impersonation. If Steamboat Willie went into the public domain, I would be free to distribute it as I please, but any adaptions or remakes would not be able to use Mickey Mouse as he is still under trademark. A DVD containing the episode would be kosher, but a figurine of the titular steamboat depicting Mickey would result in my disappearance and the only clue being three circles drawn on a nearby wall.

In fact, the DVD would have to rely on stills from the episode itself for the case and disc, any original art depicting the mouse would run afoul of the protections. If I put Mickey whistling at the wheel with "Steamboat Willie" on the cover, I would be in the clear, but hiring an artist to redraw it gets me a one-way trip to Disney World.

Re: Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't the constitution prohibit laws being retroactive?

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

capitol

It's capital like the Adam Smith version. Capitol is a place.

Re: Public Domain

[RevDisk]

First thing to remember about the Constitution, it is entirely a reaction to British colonialism. Basically imagine if your government had just thrown out British soldiers who were running around burning things and killing people. Who could come back at any second to burn more things and kill more people. Which they did. So, you can probably imagine why Americans might look Brits a bit funny when they make 'helpful' suggestions on the Constitution. Your government's whole occupation and murdering thing is why some of the thornier parts exist. Such as removing bits from the Constitution is made intentionally difficult so only extremely broadly acceptable amendments are passed.

Besides that... the financial nature of the US system is absolutely nowhere in the Constitution. Most of the election stuff mentioned in the Constitution is either technical (Prez gets two terms) or delegative (how to elect folks is decided by states). It's a reflection of the culture. We have an extremely powerful government and an insanely large economy. It's economically viable to attempt to buy power. There is strong incentive to do so, as the returns on investment can be very high. So people do. So many people trying to buy power raises the prices, supply and demand.

There are no easy ways to curb this. Many of the alternatives are far worse. The other thing to ponder when folks discuss major Constitutional changes... Why do you think YOUR viewpoint will automatically win? What happens if you somehow prompt such a major change and the exact opposite to want you want occurs?

Every utopia is a dystopia to someone else. Because you can only enforce a utopia on either a mono culture, or by oppressing the hell out of everyone who disagrees. Better a messy compromise that represents everyone, even if only partially.

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

The sad part is that the lose to society isn't that we can't make a free copy. If that was the only thing copyright entailed they could have it for eternity for all it matters, the problem is they get to block all derivatives. It's appalling that we will never be able to take the character's from stories we grew up with and put them in our own movies, games or songs in the same way people have been re-interpreting things like Robin Hood.
That is the great lose, out there somewhere someone has an idea for brilliant batman story or a superman movie that doesn't suck or a even R-rated Mickey mouse story ready to be made that will never happen because of eternal copyright.

Re:Public Domain

[clovis]

If businesses and real estate can be owned indefinitely, and passed down to heirs forever, why can't IP be passed down as well for infinity?

You have not understood the difference between tangible assets and intangible assets. Please read up on this and come back.

(waiting)

Are you back now? Good. Now that you are a bit more informed you can see that if you take a tangible asset from someone, they no longer have it. We call this stealing. This is universally understood as bad in the general case. Also, if you try to steal something from me I can protect myself from theft and if you get hurt while trying to steal, it I have not attacked you, I have acted in self-defense, within reasonable limits. The laws around this is easy to understand, even for children.

As for intangible assets, like copyrighted work, there is nothing inherent in it that grants you these rights. If someone uses your work, you still have access to it. It is not gone. Also, it is harder to detect someone unlawfully using it, etc. This made it hard for content creators back then, before the copyright. Essentially, you wrote a piece of music and I played it and got money for it without compensating you. Many musicians and artists back in the day had patrons paying your upkeep to be able to enjoy your music. It was hard to be an artist. And the incentive to create was low. This is bad. We want creation of new works.

So, society (that is we people) decided to band together to protect the poor artists. We said "let us help with making sure that only YOU get to use your work". But we also recognized that every work has been influenced by other work that has come before. So if we deny future artists this back catalog, again we would stifle creation.

So, we said, "in return for helping you make sure that only you get to use your work, we want this protection to be time-limited. After a number of years, where only you may profit from it, it becomes public domain. And then everyone can use it to create new and wonderful things."

I like this spirit of copyright. I want content creators to be able to make a living. The earnings they make during this time can be handed down to their heirs if they want. But I also want things to spread and be used, modified and changed when the time is right.

So let's get back to your totally inappropriate analogy. A business or real estate requires further investment just to keep existing. You cannot sit on your ass and expect money to roll in automagically. They are tangible assets. If you don't renovate your real estate it eventually crumbles and fall down. In this case it might even be confiscated by the local government in most places since it is neglected/abandoned and a public danger. A business not attended will eventually go bankrupt (if they have any bills needed to be paid) or just not generate any money (and thus, those heirs wont get a dime).

Do you understand why copyright is not the same as property rights now? Good. There are other intangible assets too (trademarks and patents for example). They work in other ways than copyright and should not be confused with each others.

Now that you know much more, cut the shit with "the ruling class vs the working class". I definitely belong to the latter, but I want reasonable copyright. 144 years is NOT reasonable. No living person, nor their children, and most likely their grand-children, will ever see something created fall into the public domain and thus see derivative works created from it. If this is not stagnating the rate of creativity, I don't know what is.

Some might say: "so what, there are enough of creativity anyway". Perhaps, but consider something like the comic "Fables" by Bill Willingham. It is a wonderful modern take on how the fables of yesterday (Snow White, Big bad wolf, Cinderella, Pinocchio, etc) live today. All those are in the public domain which means that Willingham could use them. Heck, Disney have started their empire on the shoulder

Re:Public Domain

[KingBenny]

yea i find myself willing to pay less and less for that which tries to force me there's so much stuff out there, its hard to believe people pay ridiculous money for prefab chaingang produce anymore but this finally proves politics at high level is ruled by old nazi vampires, i mean 144 years ... what's next .? consecutive life sentences or something ?

Re: Public Domain

[noodler]

Trump got elected because of that other thing politics is about: Lies.

unthinkly.

[Anonymous Coward]

1000 years of copyright protection is better, not? why don't you accept it?

Re: unthinkly.

[Anonymous Coward]

1000 Planck Times is reasonable.

Ick

[mentil]

144 years?! That's Gross!

Re:Ick

[Anonymous Coward]

Ohhh I just got it.
Because it's morally repellent. :)

This is great news.

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally, something both Demonrats and Republicunts can agree on!

Re: This is great news.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, and fucks over the regular people. A wet dream of political types.

Re: This is great news.

[gtall]

Yes, and no. They do it to pay off their political contributors. The regular people are mere collateral damage and never rise to being interesting until election time when they are trolled with bogeymen and dead unicorns.

Increasing rate of creation

[Anonymous Coward]

We increase our rate of production with each generation. This seem like the wrong direction in the face of an ever expanding catalog of created work.

Ridiculous

[manu0601]

This is getting ridiculous, especially given that Disney does not produce any new movie featuring Mickey mouse. They should just remove public domain, that way they would not need to add insult to the injury every 20 years.

Just one question: what happens once the works are not protected anymore in other countries? Will Indian and Chinese company produce legal US knock-off for worldwide consumption except in US?

Re:Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I'll just respect their natural right: If they keep their work secret and don't publish, I don't copy it.

Re:Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

What's most likely going to happen is that the US will use their trading power to compel these other countries to adopt the long and strict copyright terms: if your copyright law doesn't match US copyright law, we will not open our trade borders to you.

Re:Ridiculous

[Kjella]

This is getting ridiculous, especially given that Disney does not produce any new movie featuring Mickey mouse. They should just remove public domain, that way they would not need to add insult to the injury every 20 years.

Well back in 1998 at the last Mickey Mouse protection act, when they were told they couldn't get perpetual copyright due to the constitution saying "limited times" Jack Valenti famously suggested forever less one day.

Just one question: what happens once the works are not protected anymore in other countries? Will Indian and Chinese company produce legal US knock-off for worldwide consumption except in US?

Possibly, but the tactic has always been to extend the rights in one territory then "harmonize" them through trade agreements.

Re:Ridiculous

[mark-t]

They are public domain.

Old Mickey Mouse cartoons are already public domain in Canada, for example.

But the character is still trademarked by Disney, so there are still limits on what you can do.

One can, however, copy such old works freely here... and give them away or even charge for them. Derivative works are also allowed, but the characters and depictions would have to be changed because of trademark protection.

Re:Ridiculous

[dgatwood]

One can, however, copy such old works freely here... and give them away or even charge for them. Derivative works are also allowed, but the characters and depictions would have to be changed because of trademark protection.

I think if it turns out Disney is pushing for this, the only appropriate response is mass rebellion, in the form of creating DeepFake porn starring Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Agree to stop only if and when they agree to stop being copyright thugs.

Bonus points if you synchronize the moans to the tune of "Ooh, Mickey, you're so fine".

Re:Ridiculous

[rtb61]

Obviously other countries are looking a reviewing copyright terms and reducing them, hence the US corporate counter move of doubling them but of course they actually want to make it permanent, you know like the scientology contracts, a billion years.

What happens when the rest of the world goes their own way, US import revenues dry up anyhow. They will of course threaten economic conflict but those doing the importing can only really threaten war. Economic war, does not work for the economic parasite because it cuts them off from their victims and they end up starving.

So this story nothing more than proof that other countries are already sticking it to the US behind the scenes to cut back on copyright terms, this move pointless, other than showing their hand, laughably pointless. 144 years of internet content, you wont be able to publish anything in about 25 years without infringing someone's copyright on some internet content. Reality is, copyright needs to be radically shortened to take into account the sheer volume of internet content and you can not separate content types some having protection and others not. The internet will force a reduction in copyright terms, otherwise everyone will end up existing content blocked.

Those trade war meetings with China did not go so well, huh ;)?

Re:Ridiculous

[PGaries]

Mickey Mouse is still used in the Kingdom Hearts game franchise and Disney's theme parks.

Re:Ridiculous

[PopeRatzo]

DeepFake porn starring Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

Throw Pluto in the mix for some cuck porn, but pay him $130,000 to sign an NDA. That seems to be the going rate.

Re:Ridiculous

[currently_awake]

The solution is Property Tax. They want their Intellectual Property to be treated just like real estate, I suggest we oblige them. And the property tax should be payable in every country where the copyright is protected, with the revenue used to pay for copyright enforcement.

Re:Ridiculous

[digitect]

Mod parent up, that's a great way to self-regulate the supposed value of the copyright.

Re:Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

USA representatives are holding the NAFTA talks hostage because, in part, Canada doesn't follow US laws on copyright. They're trying to bully Canada into agreeing to go along with all of their copyright laws.

Re: Ridiculous

[Bing Tsher E]

Does Pluto get to go on Rachel Maddoc's show, and all the Day Shows7, after collecting the 130k?

Re: Ridiculous

[Bing Tsher E]

And huge volumes of licensed merchandise, i.e. shirts, balloons, watches, neckties, etc.

Re:Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Alternatively: use this unreasonable term as the basis of a lawsuit that finds copyrights in the U.S. unconstitutional. Bonus points: 1st amendment support of public domain and make abuse of federal powers in violation of these a felony.

Re: Ridiculous

[PopeRatzo]

Does Pluto get to go on Rachel Maddoc's show, and all the Day Shows7, after collecting the 130k?

If Mickey doesn't sign the NDA and claims the cucking never happened, then absolutely. He gets to go on all the cable TV shows. You know, live by the cable news and die by the cable news. Also, everybody likes dogs.

Re: Ridiculous

[Z00L00K]

Here's an interesting Mickey Mouse: https://www.tradera.com/item/3...

Re:Ridiculous

[dryeo]

Every treaty will include copyright harmonization. Right now this is probably happening with NAFTA, the latest secret treaty that is being worked on.
What you thought stopping the TPP would end there?

Re:Ridiculous

[Darinbob]

Mickey Mouse is a trademark. The film in which Mickey Mouse first appeared should normally be considered out of the copyright period if sanity prevailed. However that would not necessarily mean that every short in which Mickey Mouse appeared would have been out of copyright. So the appearance of Mickey Mouse in a modern game is somewhat irrelevant to the purposes of discussing copyright terms.

Disney does NOT need to protect Steamboat Willy copyright in order to protect copyright on all Mickey Mouse works.

Re: Ridiculous

[bool2]

Why should the revenue be used for enforcement? Don't you think they get enough already?

Re:Ridiculous

[Peter P Peters]

the only appropriate response is mass rebellion, in the form of creating DeepFake porn starring Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

You know Mickey and Minnie are cartoons? And that Deep faking been possible with cartoons since, well... cartoons were invented? 'Deep Fake' Mickey porn has been around so long it's almost our of copyright....

Re: Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh they need revenue to protect all that new property on the copyright holder's behalf. Unless you want to get government out of it entirely and let them privately enforce their copyright and use none of the real property rights systems like police, courts, justice system etc.

If you don't want to pay government to protect your copyrights, then give them up and you won't be paying ebil gubmints a penny.

Re:Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiots.
Many countries have NO TAX on IP, and under international agreements, this is how companies get away with it - and pay negligible tax back. Small countries with small populations like Caymans, Ireland, Switzerland, Netherlands and Singapore etc. The USA cannot change this.

The tax should be doubled again if the IP was never openly tendered on the open market, rather than non arms length interconpany trading.

The solution is a duty or excise on all IP to the tune of around 17% PLUS sales tax/gst/VAT. Undet WTO this can also be done by a witholding tax - no problems.

Re:Ridiculous

[Rockoon]

after forcing Canada to capitulate on IP

Canada was not forced to do anything. The U.S. didnt threaten to nuke Canada if it didn't "capitulate."

Turns out that when you trade for something you gotta give something in return. Free trade is win-win so long as both parties are rational.

Re:Ridiculous

[Whibla]

It's kind of already been done, and Disney were not happy.

There is a shorter account of the incident under the heading The Air Pirates.

Of course technology moves on, so it's probably time for an animated version rather than a couple of comic books but I'm not sure who'd be 'brave' enough to host it...

Re: Ridiculous

[Bing Tsher E]

But does Goofy, one of Mickeys good friends, throw scraps from the table to Pluto?

$130k is a good return for one lay. Don isn't really *that* ugly and it's certain she has done worse guys for less.

Re: Ridiculous

[PopeRatzo]

$130k is a good return for one lay. Don isn't really *that* ugly and it's certain she has done worse guys for less.

Wait, who is "Don"? We're talking about Mickey and Minnie.

Do you libs have to make everything about Trump?

Re:Ridiculous

[dryeo]

And how often are both sides rational?

Re: Ridiculous

[ItsJustAPseudonym]

"Don" is a Duck.
/ducks

Re:Ridiculous

[mark-t]

There is nobody on earth that a 140 year copyright term benefits. Nobody. Even the so-called benefit it offers corporations is specious because other protections exist for corporations that wish to hold onto intellectual property for that length of time. There is precisely *zero* chance that a creator who made something over a hundred years ago is going to be even slightly bothered by somebody copying them because they are already dead... and of course, since the creator is dead, it won't even be possible to get written permission.

Re:Increasing rate of God's creation

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that the Bible needs copyright protection since the year 0 for more than 2000 years: the beneficiaries are the Jesus's apostles.

The U,S, dollars have copyright protection: you can't print/copy them, only the federal authorities can.

Guess I might end up going back to bootlegging....

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like I might just end up having to go back to bootlegging in the future. Don't refer to it as piracy because I have never taken any of the stuff by force while at sea.

I have actually managed to migrate to a completely legit setup over the years. I own (Or to put it more accurately, am legally authorized to use or view) absolutely everything I have. But if this passes, might just say screw it and go back to the old stuff in the future for any older stuff I want.

Will stick to the legal paths for the newer stuff, but after 14 years, I figure I might just go back to what I did in the old high school days. I will respect the law when the lawmakers respect the laws original intent instead of screwing the public twisting the law against that intent.

Truth In Labelling

[Anonymous Coward]

They need to call this bill:

"The Fossilizing Culture, Giving Benefits of Creative Masters To Talentless Heirs, Lazy Marketing and Entitled C-Level Executives Act of 2018"

Re:Truth In Labelling

[HiThere]

Who owns the copyrights? You seem to be assuming that the artists will own them, but I find this quite dubious.

Re:Truth In Labelling

[tepples]

The artist owned the right, at the creation of each such work, to choose to whom to sell his or her interest in each such work.

Re:Truth In Labelling

[LocalH]

The FCGBCMTHLMECLE Act?

That'll never work.

Call it the Fostering Absolute Total Flawless Understanding of Copyright, Kek Act

Re:Truth In Labelling

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a lazy acronym, not really describing the Act itself. How about:
Copyright
Holders
Own
Definitively for
Eternity

Re:Truth In Labelling

[Anonymous Coward]

So this retroactive increase in the value of the rights should mean a retroactive change in the payments to the artists FOR those rights.

Re:Truth In Labelling

[LocalH]

But most such acronyms don't really describe the Act itself. *shrug*

Re:Truth In Labelling

[Anonymous Coward]

If a law is passed to kill me, they will name it the "life" act.

Re:Truth In Labelling

[tepples]

This was in fact the case for the 1978 extension for all works other than pre-1972 sound recordings. When the term under the 1909 Act expires, an author can file a notice to reclaim his copyright.

Next on the list

[oldgraybeard]

Life of the Corporate owner of the moment, plus eternity.

Just my 2 cents ;)

Re:Next on the list

[Anonymous Coward]

Life of the Corporate owner of the moment, plus eternity.

Just my 2 cents ;)

Isn't that already true? It is x (whatever x is) years after the copyright holder's death. Since corporations are now 'people' and can hold copyright, the only way to pass 'x' number of years is for the business to fold without having transferred the copyright assets to another 'living' company. As long as some entity that can 'live' owns the copyright, the ticker on 'x' number of years never starts the countdown.

And the mouse strikes again

[rsilvergun]

I was wondering when this was going to happen. They've got a Republican in the Whitehouse who'll sign anything so now's a good time. Not that I think Obama wouldn't have signed this crap, but it still pisses me off. The only politician who _might_ have told them to take a leap is Bernie, and even he might not have bothered. Christ, what a country, what a world.

Re:And the mouse strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

Republicans?!? It's the Democrats in bed with Hollywood.

And Bernie? Another waterfront vacation house might sway his opinion.

Re:And the mouse strikes again

[cascadingstylesheet]

I was wondering when this was going to happen. They've got a Republican in the Whitehouse who'll sign anything so now's a good time. Not that I think Obama wouldn't have signed this crap, but it still pisses me off. The only politician who _might_ have told them to take a leap is Bernie, and even he might not have bothered. Christ, what a country, what a world.

Both parties have been doing this all along, obviously.

I'm with the founding fathers on this one (7 years, with one extension to 14), but who cares about old dead white guys, amirite?

Re:And the mouse strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

Republicans?!? It's the Democrats in bed with Hollywood.

And Bernie? Another waterfront vacation house might sway his opinion.

I doubt it. His in-laws had to die to give him the property he sold to buy his last one. I don't think his in-laws can die and give him another one.

Unless you are making the assumption that he just bought the house with illegal money or donations at which point, sorry, you must mistake him for Trump. Sanders actually practices what he preaches. All I can tell you is to stop drinking the bong water and educate yourself on the subject matter next time.

Re:And the mouse strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

Republicans?!? It's the Democrats in bed with Hollywood.

That's social issues.

With business issues, it's the Republicans all the way because of gobberment regulations or some such a thing. If it's good for Big Business then they're your people. You little people like Cody the Coder or Joe the Plumber are better off with the Dems.

No, you cannot work "hard enough" to be a billionaire - ever.

Re:And the mouse strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

Sanders actually practices what he preaches

Hahahahaha, no. Bank fraud Bernie most certainly does not.

But I digress: You're all fucking retarded. RTFA, click on the fucking bill. This is about as bipartisan as you can get.

Re:And the mouse strikes again

[HiThere]

Sorry, but on this issue the Democrats have been worse than the Republicans. Trump might veto it just to piss off Pelosi.

Re:And the mouse strikes again

[currently_awake]

We need to tell Trump that Obama extended copyright, and was a big supporter of it. It was his signature move!

Re:And the mouse strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

BUTTEREMAILS!

Re:And the mouse strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

democrats (post-reagan especially) seem to be favored more by the individual actors or the musical artists, perhaps because publicly supporting what their fans largely do is 'good p.r.'... not the big wealthy corporate donors who actually profit the most from the copyright extensions. most of *THAT* money goes straight into the wallets of *republicans*. they're both to blame here, but mostly the morons on the right. if these big media companies had the democrats in their pockets, this would have sailed through congress back during obama's first two years (when democrats last controlled the house and senate).

Re:And the mouse strikes again

[eclectro]

I have been on that damn mouse watch as well. Too bad people can't get behind/against this like they did net neutrality. Btw, corporate welfare knows has no specific party affiliation. Though I do think with Hollywood Hillary it would have been automatic that this thing would have been signed.

Re: And the mouse strikes again

[Bing Tsher E]

Hillary would have had Harvey Weinstein standing next to her on the platform at the signing ceremony.

Re:And the mouse strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no doubt the bill is bipartisan. When it comes to copyright protection, both sides throw us under the bus for their donors with most of them too ignorant of the subject matter to know just how much they are selling out their children and grand children's future with their bill.

As far as Bernie goes, you are the retarded one unless you are just trolling at which point, congrats. The whole bank thing with Sanders was where his wife applied for a bank loan and for the income of the company, she included pledged donations, the problem was they included some they had not yet received, that is the whole thing. If you want to bash the man, come back with better material that isn't so easily debunked by anyone willing to take a few moments to look into it.

Captcha: Saltiest

Re:And the mouse strikes again

[dryeo]

14+14, and it was actually the English who introduced those terms, to further education. Your Founding Fathers agreed and just changed advancing learning to advancing the sciences and arts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:And the mouse strikes again

[dryeo]

Yet it is Trump pushing IP shit in NAFTA, probably harsher patent protections, perhaps including extensions and obviously doing something about Mickey Mouse being public domain in Canada.
Everyone forgets that Trump and Hillary are good friends when they aren't playing politics. Shit Hillary was a Republican and Trump was a Democrat.

Re:And the mouse strikes again

[Darinbob]

What do you mean, Trump used Hollywood to its max to get himself hyped and turned into a nationally known figure. Republicans are just as much in bed with parts of Hollywood as democrats are.

Re: And the mouse strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? You visited an alternate dimension that forked off from ours when the election count came out and thereby not only managed interdimensional travel but also prove the multiverse at the same time?!?!?!?!

GET THIS GUY A NOBEL!!!!

Re:And the mouse strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

Still way longer than necessary for what it is intended to do.
No-one creates art for any possible profit 14 years down the road.
Companies that only look at quarterly profits shouldn't enjoy copyright longer than that.

Re:And the mouse strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

They love Trump in Hollywood; look how they fawned over him at the Oscars. It's not fair why didn't Hillary and Obama receive such partisan help from Hollywood?

Re: And the mouse strikes again

[Bing Tsher E]

Get a grip, AC.

Re:And the mouse strikes again

[Whorhay]

And don't forget that those liberal communist scum out in Hollywood are likely behind this!

We need to fit illegal immigration into this somehow...

What incentive

[AHuxley]

will the next generation of smart people have to be creative?
If their parents and grandparents can pass down payments for the next generations?
From the need to support the food and rent of a creative person for been productive to non productive generations getting payments 143 years later?
A book becomes a play. Produced for radio. A book on tape. Then a new movie. A book for the movie with new cover art. A 3d movie. An ebook. A VR game...
Every generational product alteration adds 144 years?

Re:What incentive

[Anonymous Coward]

will the next generation of smart people have to be creative?
If their parents and grandparents can pass down payments for the next generations?

Worked out for natural resources.
If your grandparent or generations before that grabbed enough land you can live off it. If they didn't you are screwed.

Unless you can afford a personal space program to claim some extraterrestrial natural resources you won't get that opportunity.

The end of culture

[DMJC]

This is actually the end of culture as we know it. I recently tried to track down some 3D modelling software that I used to use. Legal copies are not available for sale. I've checked, ebay, amazon, gumtree and google. There are no copies out there. I've checked on every warez site on the internet. literally no-one is carrying that program anymore. All the torrents are dead. Microsoft bought the company in 2008 and axed the product in 2009 during the GFC, so the original publisher is unable to help. Literally the only copy I was able to track down was an old pirate copy sitting on a backup of a failed RAID array that I had here. I've since put it on Dropbox and Google Drive (privately not publicly). We are creating a new dark age with these copyright laws. A lot of information is already lost forever and it's only going to get worse from here.

Re:The end of culture

[mentil]

This is a great argument for why one should use Free Software. Even if the binary were widely available, it'll eventually cease to work properly on modern OSes, or support modern features (codecs, colorspaces, etc.).

Re:The end of culture

[DMJC]

This is one of the many reasons why I use Free Software. Originally I switched due to working on a game, but then it became permanent because Microsoft Removed Features from the SideWinder Force Feedback Joysticks under Windows XP (Windows 98se had more control options) and a kernel developer helped me fix the same joystick's Linux support.

Re:The end of culture

[Anonymous Coward]

This is actually the end of culture as we know it.

I recently tried to track down some 3D modelling software that I used to use.

Literally the only copy I was able to track down was an old pirate copy sitting on a backup of a failed RAID array that I had here. I've since put it on Dropbox and Google Drive (privately not publicly).

Instead of leaving it on failed drives or sites controlled by large corporations, why don't you do the right thing and upload it to every warez site you can find.

Re:The end of culture

[Anonymous Coward]

/r/DataHoarder and /r/Piracy are our ultimate salvation.

Re:The end of culture

[dryeo]

Source code can get lost just like binaries can get lost. I've actually had to ask authors to relicense their GPL work as the source was lost and they were fine with it as they didn't have the source either.
Most people using GPL software do not have the source and it is only the most popular software where lots of people do keep copies of the source.
Things are getting better with places like Github, but even then if Github went down, lots of software source might be lost.

Re:The end of culture

[Anonymous Coward]

Lots harder, though. And if it's FSF, then it's harder still because that WANTS to be shared and used by people who didn't pay cash for a license.

Re:The end of culture

[Joey Vegetables]

Definitely easier to preserve Free and Open content including software. But it can still effectively die if not maintained. Case in point . the hoops I had to jump through to convert some documents I'd stored in KWord format, which AFAIK no currently maintained Free Software supports. I don't remember exactly what I did to convert it but I'm pretty sure it involved installing a very old Linux distro inside a VM.

called it.

[Truekaiser]

I knew there would be another extension act because steamboat willie will be in public domain between 2020 and 2025 under the current rules.

Re:called it.

[ZorinLynx]

How much money does Disney even make from that cartoon anymore? I doubt it's much, so I wonder why they work so hard to protect it.

Re:called it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it would set a precedent: a Disney character in the public domain, OMG!

Re: called it.

[Z00L00K]

They are afraid that others will make money from it.

Vote the bums out

[Anonymous Coward]

I will be voting against any of my representatives who support this no matter what. I'm tired of the corruption.

Sponsor: Sen. Coons, Christopher A. [D-DE]

[rpresser]

Delaware. Land of the corporations. What a fucking surprise.

And notice he's Democratic. Supposedly the good guys, according to some. Proof that it's all about the money.

Re:Sponsor: Sen. Coons, Christopher A. [D-DE]

[Anonymous Coward]

And notice he's Democratic. Supposedly the good guys

I've noticed that Democrats manage to do the most good when they do nothing at all.

Re:Sponsor: Sen. Coons, Christopher A. [D-DE]

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't it Orrin Hatch who was nicknamed "Senator Disney"? Wouldn't be surprised if he was still somehow mixed up in this.

Follow the money trail. You'll find big "campaign contributions" (aka Bribes) to the corrupt traitors supporting this shit.

Re:Sponsor: Sen. Coons, Christopher A. [D-DE]

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoever thinks a political party is composed of good guys is a really dumbass.

Re:Sponsor: Sen. Coons, Christopher A. [D-DE]

[TheGratefulNet]

Proof that it's all about the money.

yeah, BSAB, right?

no, you're not right.

the dems are about the money.

the repubs are about the money and a false sense of jesus. oh, and hating the non-whites. and telling you how to live and what you can and can't do with your body.

but sure, both sides are bad. uhuh.

Re:Sponsor: Sen. Coons, Christopher A. [D-DE]

[Anonymous Coward]

Proof that it's all about the money.

Exactly. It is all about the money. Not the votes, since the copyright corporations will simply corrupt any new representative, too.

The way you fight this is to stop giving them money.

Disney is the main (but not the only) one pushing eternal copyright. So don't give Disney any money. Stop going to their movies, even the Star Wars or Marvel ones. Don't buy the BD/DVDs. Don't get your kids Disney merchandise. Don't go to their amusement parks. Find out all their subsidiaries, and don't give those any of your money either. Don't watch their TV channels. Heck, don't buy the products who advertise on those channels, if you can find out who they are without watching the channel.

They want to own this culture. So don't participate in the culture. All their copyrights are worthless, if no one wants to buy it. Go Galt. Turn your eyes from them, and they have no power over us.

But few, far too few, will ever do so.

Re:Sponsor: Sen. Coons, Christopher A. [D-DE]

[Anonymous Coward]

Republican = favors economic freedom over personal freedom; therefore, most Republicans are pro-corporation
Democrat = favors personal freedom over economic freedom; therefore, most Democrats aren't pro-corporation (but some may vote pro-corporation occasionally)

Does it really surprise you that a Democrat from Delaware votes with the Republicans on this issue?

Re: Sponsor: Sen. Coons, Christopher A. [D-DE]

[argStyopa]

I assumed it was sponsored by a Democrat, because they didn't blame a Republican or Trump.

Re:Sponsor: Sen. Coons, Christopher A. [D-DE]

[Anonymous Coward]

Still, it's better than the active republicans and their maliciousness

Re:Sponsor: Sen. Coons, Christopher A. [D-DE]

[serviscope_minor]

And notice he's Democratic. Supposedly the good guys, according to some.

If you subscribe to the puritanical mindset of utter black and white then yes, if the Republicans are the bad guys then the Democrats must be the good guys. I think at the moment, the Republicans are a lot worse but that doesn't make the Dems "good" in some abstract sense.

Re:Sponsor: Sen. Coons, Christopher A. [D-DE]

[Anonymous Coward]

It's definitely all about the money. It's also all about giving private corporations the power of big government. That's what the lobbyists who wrote this bill want. It turns out that Democrats are all for that...and so are "conservative" Republicans who were among the senators cosponsoring this bill. Both parties are hopelessly corrupt, and our government is too large and too powerful. It should come as no surprise that instead of protecting the "little people" against the big bad corporations, big government is protecting the corporations against the people. It's difficult to see how a few more elections is going to change things around, because the Republocrat candidates are just battling over the spoils of office, not the rights of the electorate, and certainly not looming catastrophes like the government debt.

Only choice

[Anonymous Coward]

The only choice you have is to
Tell your local book store you can not support this, so will NOT be buying anything that is copyright
Tell you local movies theatre that you will no longer go there because of copyright
Cancel any magazine subscriptions and tell them it is because of copyright
Cancel any TV subscriptions (Netflix etc) and tell them it is because of copyright
Tell Universal studios, Disney that you will no longer visit their parks because of copyright.

It is ONLY when the loss of YOUR rights has a significant negative impact on them (copyright holders) will they stop removing your rights.

Legacy?

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno, personally I'm really grateful that Tolkien's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson will still be collecting royalties on Lord of the Rings.

How else is the kid supposed to make a living?

Re:Legacy?

[Falos]

This is what gets me. Heirs are a mental construct, cultural. They can be arbitrarily picked/removed. There's no implicit connection for passing down stuff, except the simple idea of giving it to whoever you like.

Which is fine for property. And while imaginary property has that in the name, it's not a possession, it's the recognition of a source, it's the acknowledgement of someone who sired a creation, that an epic storyteller put together a mental feast of worldbuilding or whatever.

It makes sense to honor (ie pay) Tolkien on a philosophical level. "The father of XYZ." Because on a logistics level, he's entitled to nothing for "creating" an imaginary thought with no real-world value, albeit beautiful.

His grandson fits neither level. Whatever is being "passed on" (more usually it's bought) is a cardboard stand propped up by publishers and lawyers - there's no such thing. You don't "pass on" being the father of middle-earth. Bobby had nothing to do with it.

Anti-Streaming Act

[Anonymous Coward]

Transmissions of sound recordings fixed before February 15, 1972, shall be considered authorized and with the consent of the rights owner for purposes of subsection (a), if—

“(1) the transmissions are made by a transmitting entity publicly performing sound recordings protected under this title by means of digital audio transmissions subject to section 114

It looks like Section 114 would preclude streaming services but provide for digital radio. I failed to find the text in few minutes so I might be wrong about it

Time to change the name of the USA

[Required Snark]

The United States of Mickey Mouse.

Re:Time to change the name of the USA

[Anonymous Coward]

The United (TM) States of (R) Micky Mouse (C).

They shouldn't

[Anonymous Coward]

Once the originator dies he or she obviously is dead. Being a dead person you cannot possibly being entitled to anything.
Anything that is entitled for longer then the lifetime of an individual is BS galore.

Re: They shouldn't

[Anonymous Coward]

Estate law would say otherwise.

Re: They shouldn't

[Falos]

You're talking about possessions.

Which, we could have a conversation about how we call dibs on land, but for now (rightly, some would argue) it's a tangible.

Being an originator isn't. There's no way to pass on "inventor of the sword" to an arbitrary recipient, who somehow becomes the mind-behind and worth recognition (ie in the form of compensation for their conceptual provision)

Re: They shouldn't

[Anonymous Coward]

You're talking about possessions.

Which, we could have a conversation about how we call dibs on land, but for now (rightly, some would argue) it's a tangible.

Being an originator isn't. There's no way to pass on "inventor of the sword" to an arbitrary recipient, who somehow becomes the mind-behind and worth recognition (ie in the form of compensation for their conceptual provision)

You misunderstand the purpose of copyright.

It's not recognition for inventions what it seeks, it's to incentivize inventing. It purposedly rewards inventors with exclusive rights to (implicitly) commercialize their works as an incentive for people to dedicate themselves to that activity.

A particular form of commercialization is transfer of the exclusive rights to commercialization. I can make a quick buck for my work by transferring the right to others, and letting them commercialize it, if I haven't got the experience or desire to do it myself. It works for me as an incentive, and lets me focus on inventing.

If a piece of work stayed relevant for 144 years, there's no inherent reason not to keep that incentive. It only becomes an even greater incentive for others to keep inventing, since, look how many years of profit you can make!

Problem is, all those works that don't stay commercially relevant should not be copyrighted for equally long. Commercial relevance or its lack does not imply the same fate for nonprofit purposes. A work might not be commercially viable, but it may still be beautiful for some, or worth distributing under nonprofit schemes. Insane automatic copyright terms hurt society because they prohibit distribution of commercially unviable works, as if commercialization were the only measure of utility.

When nobody respects the law

[Anonymous Coward]

It might as well not exists.

Go ahead and keep stealing from the public domain. The more crazy the numbers get, the harder it becomes to paint sharing as doubleplusbad.

20 years ago knowing which WAREZ sites had the good stuff was somekind of arcane magic.

Now every 12 year old on the block pirates the Saturday morning cartoons, so he can spent his mornings playing free-to-play games instead.

Jesus.

[argStyopa]

Just fucking STOP already.

Why

[Anonymous Coward]

Do people in the valley think they should be allowed to steal and profit from other people's work? That isn't innovation, and if it's the best you can do you probably aren't good enough. The whole intent is that if you can't wantonly and slavishly co-opt, you will come up with an original idea, something modern tech is utterly bereft of. 144 years isn't nearly long enough.

Re:Why

[Falos]

You're stealing and profiting from whoever invented the chair.

Why bother putting together original ideas if you can just rentseek them indefinitely?

All those guns sure making you free!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just don't even think of fucking with the Mouse.

Marvel fans take note

[Anonymous Coward]

Marvel is a Disney subsidiary, Disney being the primary force behind this copyright shit. Boycott Disney and Marvel. Yeah yeah I know it hurts, Deadpool 2 is out now - but Consider that your great great great grandchildren will still have to pay to see that same damn movie.

Re:Marvel fans take note

[Anonymous Coward]

No they won't, I can easily pirate it. Anyone who pays for music/tv/movies is a fucking moron.

Re:Marvel fans take note

[LostMyBeaver]

Dude... in 2001 we pirated because we had no alternative means of acquiring the media. I still pirate when this is the case.

Even now, "white pirating" is often done by children who do things like chip in together to buy a film and then realize they can't share it because it's locked to one account or another. As a result, one owner pirates the film.

I recently bought a math book for kindle which was unusable because of the page layout. So I pirated a PDF while waiting for a print copy in the mail.

But outright pirating with no intent of attempting to reward the author for their work is just wrong. Even the worst movie ever made, if you find yourself distracted for 2 hours because of it deserves at least a little love.

Yesterday, I mailed a company and informed them that I would pirate their software until such time as they switched to using a payment processing company that didn't strike me as a scam. I recommended using the Windows Store, but they complained about this. So I told them that my money is waiting for them when they're ready to take it.

Re: Marvel fans take note

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's your hash tag #boycott_Disney_Marvel_infinity_copyright

Re:Marvel fans take note

[x0ra]

I still pirate because "content owners" are fucking morons unable to propose a decent catalog. The best in term of catalog is Netflix, and it still deeply suck beside original productions. Prime Video is a joke.

Re:Marvel fans take note

[Anonymous Coward]

An by "author" you usually mean "media conglomerates".

Should copyright be extended to 100+ years, tell me how you reward the author 30 years after his/her death.

Re:Marvel fans take note

[Anonymous Coward]

who is the author? who gets paid? Mostly those 2 are not the same people. But now lets extend it to 144 years, the author could be dead for at least 100 years. The only one really enjoying the money is the company who bought the script. And how do they use it the money they got from it? By paying lots of money to extending this copyright, instead of paying the ones who made it...

Re:Marvel fans take note

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't miss much by ignoring all that superhero/comic book utter cgi-porn crap.

Re:Marvel fans take note

[Anonymous Coward]

I was really confused there for a moment reading cgi and thinking of something completely different.

Re:Marvel fans take note

[epine]

But outright pirating with no intent of attempting to reward the author for their work is just wrong. Even the worst movie ever made, if you find yourself distracted for 2 hours because of it deserves at least a little love.

I guess you missed the whole debate over generative culture: that the whole point of consuming culture is to acquire your own capacity to make more. Hint: music has been around a lot longer than copyright. (And theorems still get no copyright love.) Off hand, I'm guessing Lessig, Zittrain, and Shirky have all contributed to this discussion.

Good grief, people, aim higher than distraction tithes, in which the purpose of having a job is to make enough money to forget that you have a job, because said job is really nasty.

I've never figured out how to worship at the altar of commercialism without lowing my conception of what society aims to achieve.

So I'm telling you that my love for copyright is waiting for something closer to the generative, pre-commercial ideal.

Re:Marvel fans take note

[doccus]

Anyone who pirates music/tv/movies is a fucking moron.

FTFY.

Bull fucking shit. If the actual AUTHOR or content CREATOR is alibe then you may a point. But I'll be damned if I'm going to reward these same media conglomerates who more than likely are the very ones that sent the creator to an early grave long after the author/original creator(s) is dead.
  And you should know I am one of those affected musicians MYSELF. I fully hope people would pay for my stuff while I am alive, as long as I receive the the proceeds and not big media. But after I'm dead, I could not care less.

Re: Marvel fans take note

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who bothers to even pirate to watch that crap is a moron. The only thing that's worse for the industry than piracy is people not even watching it!

Re:That's cute

[Anonymous Coward]

You think the US has "trading power". KEK.

Debt. You have debt son.

add an renewal fee or something to fix abandonware

[Joe_Dragon]

add an renewal fee or something to fix abandonware / orphan works.

fine, but paybacks are a bitch..

[TheGratefulNet]

ok, so you revoke the social rules and keep changing things in your favor. you show no signs of respect for us, the consumers.

well, then, its come to the point where we no longer care about you or your 'rules'.

you started the war, but we can play dirty, too, you know.

Re:fine, but paybacks are a bitch..

[Anonymous Coward]

Go read Nightwatch by Terry Pratchett.

When you write

[houghi]

When you write, please do not forget o transfer at least the same amount of money as the companies do.

LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahahahahahahaha

What a fucked up country you live in :)

The rich own every

[OrangeTide]

And they own it forever.

Re:That's cute

[avandesande]

If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem.
J. Paul Getty

Mickey nothing.

[tepples]

S.2393 is not a term extension at all but an expansion of the scope of existing state law copyright in pre-1972 sound recordings, whose expiry had already been set at 2067 by the previous term extension. In particular, "sound recording" under U.S. copyright law does not include the soundtrack of "Steamboat Willie", "Plane Crazy (sound version)", or any other motion picture.

We've got "Corporate Dems"

[rsilvergun]

they're just like Republicans but they (sometimes) support Gay Marriage and abortion rights. But on anything economic they're hard right and in the pocket of the mega-corps, same as the Republicans. There's a wing of the party called "Justice Democrats" that's trying to take the party over from within. They grew out of the Bernie Bros.

Re:We've got "Corporate Dems"

[spitzak]

Post to remove fat fingered mod

Public Domain-GNU.

[Anonymous Coward]

Open Source will now be covered for 144 years. But seriously there's nothing stopping the creative saying "this is public domain" and making it stick. That's the basic idea behind CC (Creative Commons).

Re: Public Domain-GNU.

[Anonymous Coward]

It will still be open source after those 144 years. Once a source is released it will always be open regardless of license.
It's just that after 144 years it will get a BSD-style license but without the license text.
Also, 'open source' doesn't mean that you are allowed to copy or distribute it.

Isn't it ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

that the biggest acts of intellectual property theft ever were perpetrated by the media industries against the general public.

Next

[Anonymous Coward]

... this monopoly need do nothing to get the benefit ...

Once passed, the State department will spend tax-payer dollars to 'encourage' other countries to 'align' with America's corporate imperialism.

Okay

[spiritplumber]

Show me someone living for 144 years and then we can talk. Otherwise, sorry, no deal.

Re:Okay

[Anonymous Coward]

But corporations are people too, my friend, and the only limit on their longevity is the inevitable entropy introduced by hiring the inept, incompetent and corrupt. Then centuries are not out of bounds for them, simply unlikely.

Cryogenics cost money!

[Roger W Moore]

But Mickey Mouse? The only work being done on that is paying lawyers to get copyright extended again.

They have to pay for Walt's cryogenics somehow!

Forever -1 day

[rossz]

Since the Constitution specifically says "limited", they can't simply say copyright is forever. They'll keep extending it "a little more" each time their bosses, e.g. Disney, has stuff in jeopardy of going public domain.

If it was up to me, I'd set copyright to life of the original author plus 20 years (and I feel I'm being far too generous). If a work is claimed by a corporation and they refuse to name a person, then the copyright is for 20 years, period. No extensions, no exceptions.

Re:Forever -1 day

[NormalVisual]

Even then, it defeats the purpose of copyright. It was designed to allow creators the exclusive right to benefit from their work, but it was for a limited time specifically to encourage them to create more instead of resting on their laurels, with society being the ultimate beneficiary once the copyright term expired. Lifelong (or longer) copyright doesn't offer that encouragement if they can rent-seek for the rest of their lives. I've yet to see a cogent, convincing argument as to why the 14+14 term was not sufficient, and why extended terms shouldn't be considered theft (the kind where something is taken and can't be used by the other party) from society. Also, why are artists, writers, etc. entitled to this ridiculous term, when inventors are getting by just fine on a 20-year patent term?

Re:Forever -1 day

[Whorhay]

And just think, if we went to a 14+14 term authors like GRR Martin might actually find the motivation to finish their stories before the first part of it expires.

Re:Forever -1 day

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the Constitution specifically says "limited", they can't simply say copyright is forever. They'll keep extending it "a little more" each time their bosses, e.g. Disney, has stuff in jeopardy of going public domain.

If it was up to me, I'd set copyright to life of the original author plus 20 years (and I feel I'm being far too generous). If a work is claimed by a corporation and they refuse to name a person, then the copyright is for 20 years, period. No extensions, no exceptions.

Existing US copyright law has been a Bill of Rights violation for a long time. The right being violated is the right to ethical practice of law (a right retained by the people under the 9th Amendment, and reserved to the people under the 10th Amendment) - even the appearance of conflict of interest must be avoided when alternatives exist. Given that the legal profession derives large amounts of money from contract, the fact that copyright is subject to contract for multiple decades is a clear violation of the right to ethical practice of law.

The lawyers writing the law, the lawyers voting on the law in Congress, the lawyers being cases on behalf of clients, and the judges enforcing the law are all violating their oaths to uphold the Bill of Rights.

The 9th Amendment also protects the right to ethical government, which also comes into play here.

Let's face facts: government in the USA is a criminal organization that is routinely violating the law, aided and abetted by the US legal profession.

10,000 years.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds a lot better, why doesn't send that idea to the Congress.

Bright side?

[Anonymous Coward]

If anyone doubts that our elected officials are ... just point to the death of the public domain.

Re: Increasing rate of God's creation

[Z00L00K]

Make that 6000 years so you can include the first texts too.

Then - who's the copyright holder? And what if it's now no longer possible to read in any other language than ancient Hebrew since the copyright holder says so?

Re: That's cute

[Z00L00K]

And if you own the bank $100 billion it's a government problem.

Rent seeking

[GrimSavant]

The rent-seekers are in charge, there's really no better explanation for the behavior when you are extending copyright decades past the maximum life span of humans. Sorry if you thought the current regime would remedy this problem rent-seeker control of political power in the US, it is only getting worse, and this is but one example of it.

Re:Rent seeking

[Dread_ed]

This current regime is incapable of doing anything beyond addressing specific low hanging fruit. The American people's greatest chance of defeating measures like this is the current administration. The overhead of constant litigation has accomplished what our entrenched power structures want, which is limiting the damage that an outsider can do to the carefully orchestrated fleecing system these rent-seeking bloodsucking parasites have installed on the body politic.

Distaste is a tool used to control ignorant people by motivating them to act against their own self interest. If you find yourself feeling distaste toward a public figure it only means you are a victim of your own inability to think clearly. The best revenge against someone you dislike is to control them and make them work for you, not against you. Mindless raging opposition is childlike and stupid. It forces your opponent into an arms race with their overt efforts and turns some of their energy to covert efforts. An easier way to put this is "When you act like a loser you lose."

Re:Rent seeking

[GrimSavant]

How will they defeat measures like this? The only mechanisms I can obviously see when comparing with other realms is out of spite (like with the punitive measures attempted against Amazon), or more generalized obstruction that has this as collateral damage.

I don't know where you are getting off in the overall political theory, but the age old problems of regulatory capture and corruption have been an increasing problem in the US, and democratic power is on a decline. As OBE director Mulvaney said, he only met with lobbyists that gave him money, and overall he clearly and crudely laid out the status quo with political figures of his mindset. Money is becoming speech as the supreme court has carved away campaign finance and public corruption laws in the last decade or so, and money begets more money when used to benefit politicians who will steer public policy in favor of their moneyed constituents. The return on investment with such contributions tends to be great. Which, like with 144 year long copyright, has the obvious endgame of rent-seeking.

Mindless raging opposition this is not, it is an informed anger that sees banana republicanism becoming a primary import. This is how the game is played in a lot of countries, and it doesn't take all that much looking to realize that it ends poorly. Maybe you are a billionaire oligarch who can make these guys dance with your puppet strings, but I'm not.

Re:Rent seeking

[Dread_ed]

America has a simple leader in the White House. He tries to keep his promises, he is incapable of serious duplicity as his tendency toward braggadocio precludes sophisticated subterfuge, and is earnest in his efforts to "Make america great again" in a way that is quite unlike what his words are colored to mean.

Instead of the constant barrage of negative press, accusations that have very little basis in fact, and direct insults, all one would need to do is run a couple of news stories about how copyright law changes are stifling American innovation and dis-empowering the electorate. You would have Trump trumping up and down about how this needs to change right away so Americans can take their rightful place amongst the stars and planets in the firmament.

What? You mean to tell me Disney owns one of our major news outlets? We are well and truly fucked, then. Never mind.

EFF Donations

[Anonymous Coward]

Do they accept missiles?

Because I think they're going to need them if they want to make a difference with our government.

Too bad WE don't have a lobby.

[Anonymous Coward]

144 fucking years? That's INSANITY. Why not just quit bullshitting, and extend all copyrights to FOREVER, retroactively? You know that's where they're going, right?

What if all of us got together and pooled our money to buy our politicians back?

Or better still, what if we all refused to vote for bought-and-paid-for assholes anymore, and all agreed to vote, (as opposed to shrugging our shoulders in defeat, and deciding there's no point voting,) no matter what, and to vote ONLY for candidates who take no corporate money, no PAC/SuperPAC money, and will fight to get money out of politics?

Can you imagine what we could do, the kind of actually functional government we could have, if only we did that?

The greatest fear the oligarchs have is that we will realize we have the power to end their hegemony, and restore DEMOCRACY to our dying country... dying I say, because democracies don't make laws like this.

Re:Too bad WE don't have a lobby.

[Anonymous Coward]

What if all of us got together and pooled our money to buy our politicians back?
This is what taxes are meant to be.

Easy fix

[Solandri]

No retroactive extensions. Copyright for already-existing works stays at whatever the copyright term was when the work was created. Any extension only applies to works newly created after the extension is put into effect.

The purpose of copyright is "to promote the progress of science and useful arts." You can only promote something which has yet to be created; you cannot promote something which has already been created. So retroactively extending copyright terms serves no Constitutional purpose.

This eliminates extending copyright duration for personal gain, and limits arguments about whether or not to extend it within the scope of encouraging new works, not profiteering off of existing works.

My thought...

[aklinux]

In a word, STUPID

About time

[DrHappyAngry]

So when will Disney, Hannah Barbara and every other cartoon Maker start paying royalties to Mark Twain's estate for The Prince and the Pauper?

I am a pirate.

[SuricouRaven]

And I feel not one even the tiniest trace of guilt for that.

As much as we may love the products of the entertainment industry, most of that industry is seriously lacking a sense of social responsibility.

Re:I am a pirate.

[kackle]

I made an indie video game that was published and put into retail stores nationally. It didn't even pay for itself, since it took me years of time to make. I hope you didn't take a copy for free from me.

Re:I am a pirate.

[SuricouRaven]

Probably not. If it was on steam I may have purchased it, especially if it was in the last Christmas sale. I seldom have reason to visit physical stores now. Everything is more convenient online.

Re:I am a pirate.

[Anonymous Coward]

May I ask what game?

Re: That's cute

[avandesande]

Yes, in this case it's China's problem
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/apr/09/us-owes-china-billion-dollars-problem-beijing-trump-knows

Should reduce it to 20 years

[Anonymous Coward]

That's more than enough time.

Bi-partisan corruption

[Anonymous Coward]

This is clearly contrary to the intent of the founders of the country who were quite explicit in their desire for copyright (the right to copy) to protect mortal individual creators and encourage them to more creativity during their lifetimes. This is clearly a ploy to allow corporations, which live forever, to milk profits from stuff individuals created, many decades after those individuals are dead and buried, and thus enable those corporations and their investors and board members to direct "campaign contributions" to Senators and members of the House.

Here are the co-sponsors:
Democrats:
Sen. Booker, Cory A. [D-NJ]
Sen. Brown, Sherrod [D-OH]
Sen. Gillibrand, Kirsten E. [D-NY]
Sen. Whitehouse, Sheldon [D-RI]
Sen. Leahy, Patrick J. [D-VT]
Sen. Manchin, Joe, III [D-WV]
Sen. Schatz, Brian [D-HI]
Republicans:
Sen. Cassidy, Bill [R-LA]
Sen. Corker, Bob [R-TN]
Sen. Graham, Lindsey [R-SC]
Sen. Kennedy, John [R-LA]
Sen. Perdue, David [R-GA]
Sen. Tillis, Thom [R-NC]

Interestingly, the Democrats are nearly all "mainstream" Democrats (Manchin is the exception, as a right-leaning guy from a place that voted for Trump and facing re-election) but the Republican co-sponsors are all RINO scumbags who are mostly hated by the party base (Corker, for example, is not even running for re-election because his own party would reject him). Not sure what that says other than that the traditional alliance between the Democrats and BigMedia seems still strong and that BigMedia still seems to know how to buy "moderate" Republicans.

Mickey Mouse in China and the rest of the world

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be fun to watch Mickey Mouse popping up theme parks all around China and the rest of the world after it became LEGAL to do so there.

(China was mentioned explicitly because it had ALREADY happened before when it was still illegal to do so, and they have the economic clout to make an impact. Would anyone thinks China is going to play nice with US copyright extension?)

Fuck you

[tonique]

Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you

Re:Fuck you

[Anonymous Coward]

You first. Indeed, you are already fucked.

Please don't let this happen

[Qbertino]

This must not happen. We'll all know this is part of the larger "the right to read"scheme that has been going on ever since DRM and software patents. It's one more large brick in that wall.

Please don't let this happen.

And were all gonna...

[Anonymous Coward]

...just lie down and take it because were all just gluttons for punishment here in the west. Be sure to never write your congressman on the issue.

Oh you summer child

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the PD won't remain at all. Remember that It's a Wonderful Life was public domain once and is no more.

Remember too that there were lawsproposed to make anything in PDthat was reformatted (like making Moby Dick an e-book) would ensure a new copyright, and each change in format (like making Moby Dick a kindle format) would be a new copyright, all you need is obsolete digital formats within the term of copyrights to make eternal copyright.

And if you have enough money to sustain against a copyright claim,you can take someone else's abandoned work and just reformat it to get your own copyright on it.

You are naive to think that the PD will exist at all.

Actually you are dead wrong there.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is absolutely NO WAY to put something in the public domain. Someone can come along and reverse that and you have nothing. Not even estoppel, that would only mean you have to stop using it NOW and never use it again. Recall all those devices you built using that software released BSD -with -PD -clause.

Just watch "Used Cars"

[Anonymous Coward]

Kurt Russell gives a succinct method in how to become a Congessman. Basically involves handing over a lot of money to someone.

No way to stop it

[jonwil]

I gaurantee you there are very few people in Congress willing to stand up to (thanks to the purchase of Marvel, Lucas and now Fox) the largest producer of filmed entertainment on the planet no matter how much lobbying comes from the other side.

Re:No way to stop it

[portwojc]

Taking something from Futurama:

The Vegas odds tonight stand at an unprecedented 1000 to 0. A bet of zero dollars on this not passing paying pays 1000 dollars. Still, very few takers.

Yeah not a very smart bet...

Re: Increasing rate of God's creation

[Z80a]

Disney will be the owner by default, of course.

if (Disney = stonehenge) ! a picture

[Anonymous Coward]

If Walt Disney had been responsible for stonehenge, we still would not be able to see a picture of it.

I need to know

[Daralantan]

How will Mickey Mouse be vastly expanding and improving upon our culture? Will he truly bring us into The Days of Glory?

Mickey Mouse congress

[michelcolman]

Just goes to show what a Mickey Mouse congress the US has...

Great for the Feudalists

[prefec2]

The USA was once the beakon of democracy and freedom with a vibrant culture. True it has a rassistic past and present, but it was getting better for a long time. Then fear crawled up the neck of the USA, poor people get poorer, racism surges, healthcare is further away from a system for all than before, the government alienates allies with lies and cannon boat politics. In short it is now the ugly brother of its former glory. And hollow sound the cry for greatness over the land while the country moves away from former greatness, faster and faster.

Re:add an renewal fee or something to fix abandonw

[Anonymous Coward]

NO. By that I mean it is a good idea but this needs to stop entirely. Settling for some token considerations is not good enough. Stuff needs to expire to the public domain again, all of it, the way it's supposed to.

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no good reason for this. Creators don't live to 140 years so why should people who haven't contributed be rewarded? I think it should be set to the age of the oldest person ever to have lived which is 122 years.

The purpose of copyright law is to reward people for their creations so they can produce more. Once that person is dead it because parasitic in nature.

Scumbag Senators Sponsoring This Bill

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like a true spirit of bipartisanship. I wonder what entertainment industry lobbyists actually wrote the bill, and if there are any retiring senators interested in joining the ranks of these lobbyists. In any case, these politicians need to be held to account. I doubt they want the general public to even be aware of this bill's existence.

Cosponsor Date Cosponsored
Sen. Coons, Christopher A. [D-DE] (Introduced 02/07/2018)
Sen. Kennedy, John [R-LA]* 02/07/2018
Sen. Tillis, Thom [R-NC]* 02/07/2018
Sen. Corker, Bob [R-TN]* 02/07/2018
Sen. Booker, Cory A. [D-NJ]* 02/07/2018
Sen. Whitehouse, Sheldon [D-RI] 02/28/2018
Sen. Gillibrand, Kirsten E. [D-NY] 03/05/2018
Sen. Brown, Sherrod [D-OH] 04/09/2018
Sen. Perdue, David [R-GA] 04/09/2018
Sen. Graham, Lindsey [R-SC] 04/09/2018
Sen. Manchin, Joe, III [D-WV] 04/09/2018
Sen. Leahy, Patrick J. [D-VT] 04/09/2018
Sen. Schatz, Brian [D-HI] 05/09/2018
Sen. Cassidy, Bill [R-LA] 05/09/2018

May GOD DAM these people.

[Anonymous Coward]

My goodness, the greedy and corruption of Congress knows no limit. Anyone voting for something like this should be put down like a sick dog as they simply don't give a dam about people, the country, and the rule of law.

The real reason for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

The real reason for these extensions is that the uber-rich want to become like lords of Europe. They want to have their holdings and titles to pass down to their decedents for ages to come. They can do this by passing laws such as this in order to be lords over the people, controlling what they watch and how much they pay to watch, and how the gullible will even pay money to buy products with their names on it AND advertise for free these donkey drops.

Can you imagine if the Disney empire would actually have to create something of value beyond Mickey Mouse? Honestly, can you say that their movies are worth the remains of a good squat?

As long as they pay

[PeterJFraser]

I don't mind how long the copyright is for as long as one has to pay for extensions. Give a copyright for a short time for free, and then charge for renewals. I think 5 years for free would be best, but I would not mind if it was 10 or 25 years. After that time is up, one should have to pay for renewals, and the payment should be in the thousands of dollars. That way Disney and the like could renew the copyright on Snow White and similar works forever, but most works would be free of copyright after a small number of years.

The first question I have is:

[rnturn]

What is about to enter the public domain that absolutely, positively needs to be kept under copyright wraps? And kept under copyright wraps for, what, six/seven generations?

god dam

[luther349]

stop with the blanket extensions. if they want miky mouse forever set it up so they can just extended that. i

Diminishing Returns

[nehumanuscrede]

Copyrights should be limited to the lifetime of the original creator ( individual, not corporation ). Extending those rights does nothing more than erode innovation because the motivation isn't there to create new content.

OR

Maybe we should start increasing the tax rate on money made from said copyrights at static intervals. Normal tax rate during the first twenty years, 2x for the next twenty. 3x for next twenty, then 4x, 5x, etc. At some point continuing to milk that idea would become pointless and would guarantee its release into the public domain.

Re:Diminishing Returns

[GonzoPhysicist]

No matter how high the tax got there's still no incentive for them to not just hold on to the IP forever. A better option would be to have exponentially increasing renewal fees for fairly short intervals.

Another Mickey Mouse Law!

[kenwd0elq]

Oh, great, Another Mickey Mouseshit law. Just as the copyright on the original "Steamboat Willie" cartoon from Disney is about to expire, Disney gets everybody spun up about extending the copyright YET AGAIN. The Constitution (remember the Constitution? Our fundament law?) says that patents and copyrights are for "limited" times, and I don't think 144 years qualifies as "limited".

Disney

[Stubbyfingers]

Must be about to have something expire

Who gets the royalties?

[martinfb]

Who gets the royalties? Who lives that long?

How about leaving copyright to the authors until released or death.
After then, any further copyright royalties go to benefit the public; NOT the inheriting entity - human or corporate.
Oh, and those secondary copyright terms can be limited.

I hate Disney

[Anonymous Coward]

They should just demand Life + 5,000 years and be done with it. Then they can worry about this shit again in the year 7,000 or so.

extensioncopyrights protection-intellectual wisdom

[Anonymous Coward]

Sub; extension of copyrights protection-intellectual Wisdom index- Awareness
By recognizing Necessity-Demand-Intellectual Wisdom function US copyrights office is doing excellent service to humanity.
As an author having copyrights in US makes me proud.
both science and philosophy groups may take considerable digest time to catch-up with advancement of knowledge over the globe
Extension of the period for copyrights promotes the spirit -Noble Cause