In a 7-2 ruling the Supreme Court upheld the copyright law extension. So, even though copyright was meant to give an author some small window to profit from his/her ideas for a limited amount of time before it getting put into the idea gene pool to mix with the mush of other ideas and grow into something different (if not better), the Media has succeeded in making it possible for completely unrelated people to milk the cash cow forever.
I just copyrighted the long, rambling sentence, by the way.
From Sgt. Grump:
“This ruling is a victory not solely for rights holders, but also for consumers everywhere…”
Why is it that everything that is done “for my good” always turns out to be the opposite?
Hello!
Neil Gaiman raises a point that for the rest of the world, public domain starts 70 years after the author’s death, which is what this ruling brings about. To quote his comment:
“Yes, I’m pleased that the Supreme Court upheld the copyright extension stuff. It doesn’t bother me personally whether my own work goes into the public domain 50 years or 70 after I die, but a world in which stuff went into the public domain in the USA 20 years before the rest of the world (which has a 70 year expiration) would have been deeply problematic for authors and their estates.”
I don’t know enough of the case to go into details, I’m just passing on what I read.
I’m not usually a big fan of the National Review, but this article sums it up pretty darn goodly.
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-bloom112202.asp
Boy that sucks. Whoever sponsored that legislation should be run into a tree on an icy ski slope.
What?
Err…oops…, never mind.