Re: Copyright Extension Bill Passes Congress

Tyler Ochoa <tochoa[_at_]law.whittier.edu> wrote:
>
> I am afraid that the "international harmonization" argument was used
> as a smoke-screen for the Disney agenda. Yes, the German position
> and European harmonization created a powerful political incentive for
> the U.S. to increase the term of copyright for individual authors
> by 20 years, from life plus 50 to life plus 70. BUT my [limited]
> understanding is that for works made for hire, European copyrights
> extend only 70 years. U.S. law already gave works made for hire a
> duration of 75 yeras. But instead of "harmonizing" U.S. copyright
> law by reducing the duration for works made for hire by 5 years, we
> extended the term for works made for hire to 95 years [from the date
> of first publication.]
>
> So although we harmonized the terms for individual authors, we created
> additional dis-harmony for works made for hire. Why? I have to blame
> that portion of the law on Disney, the Gershwin trust, and their allies
> (motion picture studios and the heirs of other popular songwriters),
> not the Germans.

Not sure this is the case.

In the UK at least, the term for works made in the course of employment is life of the author plus 70 years; it is just that the employer is the first owner of the copyright. In many continental jurisdictions there is no work-for-hire doctrine at all.

I agree with you about the beneficiaries of extension, and doubt whether it makes any difference to works currently created - if only because the net present value of twenty years' worth of uncertain royalties at least fifty years ahead must be negligible. But I don't think globalisation is a minor issue - for the same reasons that the territorial division of copyright is not sustainable in the longer term.

-- 
Edward Barrow
edward[_at_]plato32.demon.co.uk