Fwd: HEADLINES FROM Kansas City ITEC - NOVEMBER 7-8, 2007

[Monty J. Harder]

On 8/29/07, Leo Mauler <webgiant at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I was always given to
> understand that the copyright holder received
> government protection for a limited period in exchange
> for their copyrighted work entering the public domain
> at the end of that limited period.  Or in other words,
> the copyright holder received life + 25 to control his
> or her work and receive royalties for its use, and in
> exchange the taxpayer received the high-quality work
> after life + 25 to use for free.
>

Close.  The Constitution says 'for limited times' in the language that
authorizes copyrights and patents.  The first copyright law was an initial
term of 14 years that could be renewed for an additional 14 years.  There
seems to be a good argument for such an arrangement.  A work that doesn't
sell enough copies to justify additional printings won't warrant renewal,
pushing it into the public domain all the sooner, so that anyone who is
interested in providing copies would be able to do so without having to
worry about licensing fees.

Every time Steamboat Willie gets close to passing out of copyright, Disney
buys an extension of the copyright term. (This ignores the fact that there
is no commercial value to that particular movie, and the Mickey Mouse
character is still protected by trademark law, so no one could make a new
movie with him in it without running into trouble.) What I have never been
able to understand is how they could get a copyright on an existing work
extended, since the Constitutional language is about encouraging authors.
How does extending the copyright on something that's already been made
encourage making it?  The prohibition against ex post facto laws should
prevent such shenanigans; you can neither encourage nor discourage past
behavior, so Congress isn't supposed to have the power to try doing so.

But I'm too damn logical to be a lawyer.
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