[clue-talk] The War On...?

[Matt Gushee]

Joseph A. Nagy, Jr. wrote:

> Is it? It used to be that a copyright only lasted for the life of the owner
> (and that is the limit to which I recognize copyrights). Now they last for
> the life of the author +75-95 years so corporations can make even MORE money.
> That is completely unjust. When did the corporate rights mean more then the
> rights of the author? I also have problems with estates claiming ownership
> over works of deceased authors. Sorry, but Tolkien, Chaucer, and Asimov's
> works are all public domain now,

Sorry, but under US law (and probably British also), Tolkien and Asimov 
are quite a few years from entering the public domain--and that's not a 
new development, either. There have been several revisions to copyright 
law that progressively extended the term--I forget exactly when those 
were enacted, but it may have been 1923, 1969, and 1997.

Now, if you said "should be," or "ethically speaking," I think I'd agree 
with you.

--
Matt Gushee
Englewood, CO, USA