15 Nov
2015
15 Nov
'15
5:16 p.m.
On 11/15/2015 04:27 PM, Christian Gauger-Cosgrove wrote:
To put it lightly, these copyright terms are beyond excessive, in my
own opinion. I'm probably not going to be wrong in saying that none
of the pieces of software I mentioned will go into the public domain
before all the original creators and users have died. Hell, most of
the software probably won't go into the public domain before the
*children* of those who created the software will have died.
Remember that Mary Bono (widow of Sonny and US House Representative for
California's 45th distrct 2003-2013) really wanted a copyright term
extension to perpetuity. When informed that would be unconstitutional,
she settled for the current US term as described in the Sonny Bono
Copyright Extension Act of 1998.
In fact, the question was put before the Supreme Court and the opinion
at the time was that copyright term had to be fixed, but could be
increased incrementally without limit.
So, unless the current corporate winds suddenly change direction, expect
that 95 year to be "amended". After all, we must protect Mickey Mouse
until he's long passed out of human memory.
--Chuck