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It's partly Disney (and the Gershwin estate) but the 56-year term was extended in 1976 to bring the US in line with the Berne Convention life-plus-50 term used
by bbanyc 13y ago
It's partly Disney (and the Gershwin estate) but the 56-year term was extended in 1976 to bring the US in line with the Berne Convention life-plus-50 term used in the rest of the world. The current life-plus-70 term originated in Germany, spread to the rest of the EU and then was adopted in the US for "harmonization" with Europe.
Harmonization is not necessarily a bad thing. Pre-1976 US copyright law had some outright bizarre restrictions - a book could forfeit its copyright status if the publisher printed it outside North America and imported it - that we're better off having eliminated. But when everything has to be harmonized, it's rare for anyone to question why the policies we're harmonizing with are in place.
- jellicle 13y agoBut who pushed for it in Germany, etc.? Oh, right: Disney and the rest of the copyright industry. "Harmonization" somehow always ratchets upwards, never downwards. No one said to Germany: don't ratchet your copyright term upwards, keep it harmonized. When in the next few years U.S. copyright suddenly "needs" to be extended another 20 years, no one is going to complain that this will break harmonization. The copyright industry does not care at all about harmonization, and you should not adopt their framing by talking about it. They are copyright maximalists, pure and simple.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- bbanyc 13y agoThe Berne Convention (life-plus-50) was adopted in 1886 - before Walt Disney was born, before the first motion picture was made, when recorded sound was just a novelty. Publishing houses were small and there was no "copyright industry" at the time. For the most part, it was the authors themselves, most prominently Victor Hugo, lobbying for protection. Now I think even the Berne term is too long and the rights granted too expansive, but it wasn't just a naked power grab by the not-yet-existent Big Media. (The German 20-year extension was probably a naked power grab, but it happened in the 1960s and was well off the radar of English-language media companies. The descendants of some German author who died in the '20s are most likely to blame.)
- Guvante 13y agoWhile the origin of the 20 year extension is unrelated, the persistence is what he was referring to. Rather than matching others they kept their own.
- linuxhansl 13y agoThat's nice scheme. You pick a country where pushing copyright limits is bit easier than in the US; thenyou "harmonize" with that. Brilliant.
- warfangle 13y agoDoesn't mean it should have been retroactively granted. Extend the term if must needs; but retroactively granting additional years on an already-established term is violating the spirit of the US Constitution, if not the letter. LL agrees; the SCOTUS didn't.
- darkarmani 13y ago> It's partly Disney (and the Gershwin estate) but the 56-year term was extended in 1976 to bring the US in line with the Berne Convention life-plus-50 term used in the rest of the world. The current life-plus-70 term originated in Germany, spread to the rest of the EU and then was adopted in the US for "harmonization" with Europe. I'm not sure that is the reason why it was extended, but that was definitely the excuse they used. The reason I doubt their intentions is the fact that they made it retroactive instead of applying it to new works.
- chrismcb 13y agoDidn't we just have a discussion about Sherlock Holmes. The last few stories are copyrighted in the US but NOT in Britian... Good thing we have hamornization. I'm all for a more world wide copyright. But keep it to a realistic term. Amazon claims they have few books older than 25 years, so 25 sounds like a good length to me. The Constitution says "for a limited time" I would claim that anything time that is longer than the average human life span is NOT limited.