Re: Congress to Vote to Freeze Public Domain

As I understand it, the main rationale for the EU moving towards a life+70 term was that they needed to make things uniform. Some member states had a term of life+50 and other had life+70. It was feared there would be constitutional problems if the term was cut short from L+70 to L+50, because that would effectively give rise to an appropriation of private property. No such problem applies to an extension from L+50 to L+70, so this was the path they took.

This is pretty stupid way of dealing with the issue if you ask me, since it ignores the fact that the commercial worth of most works becomes insignificant very quickly these days, and a work may now be greatly exploited in a much shorter time than 100 years ago.

Another (piss-weak) reason for extending the term is said to be that people live longer these days, thus, if the children of the author are to benefit during their lifetime, a longer term is needed.

Hmmm...

Jamie Wodetzki
<j.wodetzki[_at_]nla.gov.au> Received on Tue Mar 14 1995 - 04:41:02 GMT