🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <080c4d9e.f8291d29@usw-ex0101-008.remarq.com> andysch <aschlaflyNOasSPAM@yahoo.com.invalid> writes:
>hollaar@faith.cs.utah.edu (Lee Hollaar) wrote:
>>In article <2222641e.ddb6009c@usw-ex0101-008.remarq.com>
>andysch <aschlaflyNOasSPAM@yahoo.com.invalid> writes:
>>>You say that Congress has been extending duration retroactively
>>>since at least 1975.  What's your view of this important issue?
>>
>>Nothing that I'm going to post here.
>>
>>I just post to newgroups to try to stop misunderstandings before
>>they become full-scale urban legends ...
>
>Yeah, well, the biggest misunderstanding of all is that
>extending copyright duration retroactively is somehow
>beneficial.  Let's start with the big misunderstandings and then
>work our way down to the trivial and obscure ones.

Well, you can always start with Congress' explaination, found in
House Report 105-452 which accompanied the bill --

    The United States has international obligations to protect copyrights as
    well.  The Berne Convention, originally drafted in 1886, is the
    international treaty which mandates basic copyright protection rules for
    its member countries.  Currently there are over 100 countries that are
    members of the convention.  The United States became a member in 1989.
    Under the Berne Convention, member countries must protect copyright for a
    term of life of the author plus fifty years.  Under "the rule of the
    shorter term," member states need only protect the work of foreign authors
    to the same extent that they would be protected in their country of
    origin.

    In 1995, the European Union extended the copyright term for all of its
    member states from life of the author plus fifty years to life of the
    author plus seventy years.  As the world leader in the export of
    intellectual property, this has profound effects for the United States
    if it does not extend copyright term as well.

    European Union countries, which are huge markets for U.S. intellectual
    property, would not have to provide twenty years of copyright protection
    to U.S. works and the U.S. would lose millions of dollars in export
    revenues.  Extending copyright term to life of the author plus seventy
    years means that U.S. works will generally be protected for the same
    amount of time as works created by European Union authors.  Therefore, the
    United States will ensure that profits generated from the sale of
    U.S. intellectual property abroad will come back to the United States.

    Extending copyright protection will be an incentive for U.S. authors to
    continue using their creativity to produce works, and provide copyright
    owners generally with the incentive to restore older works and further
    disseminate them to the public.  Authors will be able to pass along to
    their children and grandchildren the financial benefits of their works.