Eldred v. Ashcroft<\/a>, being argued today before the US Supreme Court, it’s clear to me that Congress, even though they have the power to set the length of copyright, have, by continuing to extend and extend and extend that period, gone far beyond the Constitutional “limited” description.<\/p>\nUnder current law, as last amended in 1998, works remain in copyright for 70 years after the death of the creator<\/i>, or, for works owned by a corporation, for 95 years<\/i>.<\/p>\n
By Congress’ way of thinking — and Disney and AOL Time Warner — nearly a century is “limited.” And that’s assuming that Congress doesn’t extend it again. And again. And again.<\/p>\n
Copyright was meant to ensure that someone didn’t create something, only to have others immediately exploit it without providing the creator any benefit. It was not meant to provide a perpetual cash cow to the creator and their heirs (and their heirs).<\/p>\n
AOL Time Warner said if the extension were struck down, it would threaten copyrights for some of its movies, including \u201cCasablanca,\u201d \u201cThe Wizard of Oz\u201d and \u201cGone With the Wind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jeez. How unfair. After all, it’s not like AOL Time Warner has ever made any money off of those works. (Actually, given Hollywood accounting practices, they are all probably officially still in the red. But that’s another matter.)<\/p>\n
Imagine if only one publisher could print copies of Shakespeare. Imagine if “The Star-Spangled Banner” were still copyrighted and required royalties to play it. Imagine if the Mona Lisa could only be reproduced by authorized distributors.<\/p>\n
The idea of media corporations owning such works in perpetuity — effectively what is happening now — is unprecedented since the High Priests restricted reading and writing to themselves. The crocodile tears of Disney and AOLTW are not convincing to me. The “loss of revenue” they claim is countered by the wealth the public will gain as these works become available, and other works can be derived from them. If “Steamboat Willy” is an icon, a classic, it is part of society, and society ought to own it by now, not Disney.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am a believer in free enterprise. I am a believer in Intellectual Property. I am a believer in the principle of copyright, as laid out in the Constitution. Individuals,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[263,79,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disney","category-media-intellectual-property","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":137499,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/12\/28\/a-long-awaited-copyright-thaw-begins-on-new-years-day.html","url_meta":{"origin":3670,"position":0},"title":"A long-awaited copyright thaw begins on New Years Day","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 28-Dec-18 10:29am","format":false,"excerpt":"After the last Disney-sponsored throttling of creative works passing from copyright status in the US to the public domain, we've had a freeze on such things, with anything published after 1922 being still deemed under copyright, with all the restrictions for use and re-use that carries. That happened in 1998,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3177,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/07\/28\/hacking_at_our.html","url_meta":{"origin":3670,"position":1},"title":"Hacking at our freedom","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 28-Jul-02 12:45pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I believe in copyright. I believe in respecting the rights of a producer of a creative work, and am willing to extend that to the people whom that producer sells...","rel":"","context":"In "Disney\/Pixar"","block_context":{"text":"Disney\/Pixar","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/disney"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":24991,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/01\/the-public-domain.html","url_meta":{"origin":3670,"position":2},"title":"The Public Domain","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 1-Jan-12 10:25am","format":false,"excerpt":"... in the US isn't growing much, largely because so many copyright holders (Disney being among the most famous) keep twisting Congress' arms to keep extending copyright. So here are some works, under the law until the late 70s could have entered the Public Domain today, meaning that they could\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31875,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/12\/20\/free-mickey-mouse-in-2018.html","url_meta":{"origin":3670,"position":3},"title":"Free Mickey Mouse (in 2018)!","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 20-Dec-12 2:49pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Interesting article about how Big Content is getting worried enough about copyright skepticism that it's beginning to pay for \"law articles\" advancing the idea that copyright is a natural right (not just something \"to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts\" as the US Constitution has it), that intellectual\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":136075,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/04\/08\/the-us-public-domain-floodgates-prepare-to-open.html","url_meta":{"origin":3670,"position":4},"title":"The US Public Domain floodgates prepare to open","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 8-Apr-18 7:16pm","format":false,"excerpt":"It's hard to believe that the major media companies will actually let things start sliding into the public domain again on 1 January 2019. But is there any desire or will in Congress to protect Big Media right now? (This may be the sole tarnished silver lining of having the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/unnamed.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":129500,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/01\/15\/in-a-world-where-us-copyright-law-wasnt-changed-in-1976.html","url_meta":{"origin":3670,"position":5},"title":"In a world where US copyright law wasn't changed in 1976","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 15-Jan-16 6:14pm","format":false,"excerpt":"... we in the US would have seen creative works (books, movies, even scientific papers and articles) from 1959 enter the public domain. Instead, they won't become available until 2055. Unless Disney (et al.) gets copyright extended again. Which, I'm sure, they are planning to before anything starts falling into\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3670"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47668,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3670\/revisions\/47668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}