* "Eric L. Strobel" <fyzycyst_at_home.com> on Fri, 07 Sep 2001
| This is all well and good if your topic is CURRENT copyright law. However,
| my recollection (I'm at work right now and my NTLK archive is at home) is
| that your partial quote was taken from the part of my message where I was
| discussing things I'd read about what the likes of Jefferson and Madison
| thought about intellectual property. And to them "actively profiting" (my
| phrase, not theirs) WOULD matter a great deal.
All well and good, but this has not been relevant for... going on 25 years,
now.
| could reasonably profit from their ideas. It was NEVER intended to be a
| monopoly on the idea/creation that would last far beyond the author's
| lifetime, as this was totally repugnant to the Constitution's framers.
It is interesting to note that we currently have a longer grace period than
what US copyright originally had, which was, IIRC, a flat 25 years and
could be renewed once. Of course, a copyright had to be registered to be
afforded any protection, so I think overall the majority of us are better
off.
| Rather, as someone so nicely put it when talking about the current law's
| truly absurd time horizon, (sorry if I mess this up), "You can thank the
| Mouse for that."
That was me, in fact. Note that this is strictly US copyright law.
International copyright law (Berne) still has the 20 year (IIRC) grace
period for individuals. You can blame (or thank) the Disney corporation
for the currently 50 year grace period, which will be extended yet again in
a couple of years, because apparantly nobody in Congress wants the
copyright on "Steamboat Willie", the first appearance of the character
later named "Mickey", to expire.
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