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New Bill to Limit Copyright to 56 Years, Would be Retroactive
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<blockquote data-quote="Benjamin Olson" data-source="post: 8645793" data-attributes="member: 6988941"><p>Making it retroactive just means he's not serious, as that is almost certainly several trillion dollars in government takings of private property for which IP owners would have to be duly compensated, except that it's intangible property so it would also completely strangle our court system trying to litigate what the the values are.</p><p></p><p>Some critics will also point out that it violates US treaty obligations under the Berne Convention. It should be noted that, whatever the diplomatic consequences, treaties are not directly enforceable on US law, meaning that while in some countries the government is directly legally bound by it's treaties, a US law can ignore US treaties.</p><p></p><p>Personally I think the US never should have joined the Berne convention or changed our copyright laws to conform to it in the 1970s. The prior regime of more limited copyrights with renewals served the purpose for which Congress was given the specific enumerated power of creating copyrights and patents "to promote science and the useful arts", meaning the utilitarian idea that by giving people a <em>time limited</em> exclusive right in their creations people are encouraged to create, but the public domain is ultimately enriched when their exclusive right ends. This was perverted by joining an international convention geared towards a different purpose of preserving some sort of artistic moral right in their creation, and whatever the merits of that, it has been further perverted by pure corporate rent collecting leading to lobbying to extend copyrights to an absurd length of time. </p><p></p><p>A system where of a more limited length with renewals for people actually still using copyrights is much more friendly to having a public domain while giving people and entities more than enough incentive to create. Nobody decides to create or not create something based on what rents they can or can't collect over a half century down the line. Current copyright law just impoverishes the public domain for little useful purpose.</p><p></p><p>But while I support a copyright system in many ways similar to what Mr. Hawley is proposing, this is just political grandstanding. It will go exactly nowhere, and it will go exactly nowhere because <em>the whole point of it for him is being retroactive to punish corporations he dislikes, which is the absolutely terrible part.</em> That would put the US government on the hook for trillions, create a ridiculous burden on the judicial branch, through all large copyright based industries into abrupt disarray, and hence will bring the dollars of every media conglomerate to bear in making sure his bill goes exactly nowhere. </p><p></p><p>Grandfathering in existing property interests is a basic part of how laws are made in the US and it is that way for a reason, whether you like those property interests and the people and entities who hold them or not.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Benjamin Olson, post: 8645793, member: 6988941"] Making it retroactive just means he's not serious, as that is almost certainly several trillion dollars in government takings of private property for which IP owners would have to be duly compensated, except that it's intangible property so it would also completely strangle our court system trying to litigate what the the values are. Some critics will also point out that it violates US treaty obligations under the Berne Convention. It should be noted that, whatever the diplomatic consequences, treaties are not directly enforceable on US law, meaning that while in some countries the government is directly legally bound by it's treaties, a US law can ignore US treaties. Personally I think the US never should have joined the Berne convention or changed our copyright laws to conform to it in the 1970s. The prior regime of more limited copyrights with renewals served the purpose for which Congress was given the specific enumerated power of creating copyrights and patents "to promote science and the useful arts", meaning the utilitarian idea that by giving people a [I]time limited[/I] exclusive right in their creations people are encouraged to create, but the public domain is ultimately enriched when their exclusive right ends. This was perverted by joining an international convention geared towards a different purpose of preserving some sort of artistic moral right in their creation, and whatever the merits of that, it has been further perverted by pure corporate rent collecting leading to lobbying to extend copyrights to an absurd length of time. A system where of a more limited length with renewals for people actually still using copyrights is much more friendly to having a public domain while giving people and entities more than enough incentive to create. Nobody decides to create or not create something based on what rents they can or can't collect over a half century down the line. Current copyright law just impoverishes the public domain for little useful purpose. But while I support a copyright system in many ways similar to what Mr. Hawley is proposing, this is just political grandstanding. It will go exactly nowhere, and it will go exactly nowhere because [I]the whole point of it for him is being retroactive to punish corporations he dislikes, which is the absolutely terrible part.[/I] That would put the US government on the hook for trillions, create a ridiculous burden on the judicial branch, through all large copyright based industries into abrupt disarray, and hence will bring the dollars of every media conglomerate to bear in making sure his bill goes exactly nowhere. Grandfathering in existing property interests is a basic part of how laws are made in the US and it is that way for a reason, whether you like those property interests and the people and entities who hold them or not. [/QUOTE]
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