U.S. SUpreme court extends copyright by another 20 years.....

[Stabmaster-Arson]

.....
This means Disney keeps the oldest incarnations of Mickey Mouse, and AOL gets to keep owning The Wizard of Oz, among others.


Let's not forget, Disney made a fortune of Snow White And Alice in Wonderland, both of which were public domain by the time they got ahold of them. Here's a link.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/134616436_copyrights160.html

This is horrible. And being a supreme court decision, theres not much else that can be done short of a constitional amendment.

If I was an American I would contact the powers that be and demand a time limit for copyright, be specified in the constitution.

The copyright protection has been increased 11 times in this century due to corperate bribes (Donations....)

[Neo Neko]

Hey we are on a new century now. But yes you are right. No good will come of it.

[mpucoder]

But look at it another way

a new work owned by an individual gets protection for the life of the author plus 70 years.


If Walt Disney himself, who died in 1966, held the copyrights they would not expire until 2036.

[-h]

I'm sure the proceeds of these extended copyrights are encouraging Mr. Disney to create more works of art, from beyond the grave.

(?)

This decision is frankly absurd. If congress has the power to retrospectively lengthen copyright protections, there can be no "limited" term of protection, as it can legally be extended again and again ad nauseum (as has happened throughout the 20th century).

I grow more and more disenfranchised about the USA. Thomas Paine is my personal hero, but I shudder at what he would feel could he see the political climate of his country today.

-h

[wmansir]

I love this quote:
"We are pleased with the court's ruling, which ensures copyright owners the proper incentive to originate creative works for the public to enjoy," Disney spokesman Michelle Bergman said in an e-mail.
The flaw in this argument is that the bill was retroactive, so it covered works already created. How does extending the copyright for works already created give incentive to current artists? Of course it’s also ridiculous to claim that life+50 years isn't enough incentive to create, but life+70 years is. Do any of the major studios think, even for a minute, “I don’t think we should make movies anymore, because we may only have copyright for the next 75 years. If only we had copyright for 95 years, then it would be worth it.”

I think based on the wording of the constitution the supreme court could have ruled that because the law was retroactive it violated the intent of the provision.

[trbarry]

I'm disappointed by the ruling.

But I think it is good that a number of things have happened recently that have brought the state of our copyright system into public discussion. A lot of these laws have been fine print discussed in smoke filled rooms and never really debated on the floor. Since they mostly affected industry insiders they were mostly drafted by them.

But once they start trying to enforce this fine print on the public at large they may find enough folks are annoyed that the laws get changed.

- Tom

[NeVeRLiFt]

Originally posted by trbarry
I'm disappointed by the ruling.

But I think it is good that a number of things have happened recently that have brought the state of our copyright system into public discussion. A lot of these laws have been fine print discussed in smoke filled rooms and never really debated on the floor. Since they mostly affected industry insiders they were mostly drafted by them.

But once they start trying to enforce this fine print on the public at large they may find enough folks are annoyed that the laws get changed.

- Tom


I agree Tom.
Used to be you never saw this stuff discussed on the news or in the newspaper, now its out and getting wide spread as more and more people pick up on this and how it can and will affect DVDRW's and TIVO and the very ability to even videocapture or record a TV show.


http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/opinion/story/0,24330,2249225,00.html