Re: Constitutional Challenge to (C) Code

Robert E. Smith <cosmith[_at_]ash.palni.edu> wrote:
>
> What would be the likelyhood of success for a Constitutional Challenge
> of the Duration of Copyright under both current and pending US Code?
> It seems to me that life plus fifty-seventy years does not "promote the
> progress of science and the useful arts by securing for limited time."
> I do not understand how a lifetime beyond my lifetime is limited and how
> it guarentees my right to my work when I am dead. Class action, anyone?

I wish someone would try (but as a foreigner I can't help you). I have never understood why patents are limited to 17 years and copyrights so much longer. To me, the old US idea of 50 years after creation and it's out of coyright was far better than what we all have now.

John Sankey
<bf250[_at_]freenet.carleton.ca> Received on Mon Mar 30 1998 - 22:14:59 GMT