[Coco] Duplicating Copy-Protected Games (Z-89) (Was: CocoDigest Vol 55, Issue 22) (Steve Bjork) (cdiman7)

[Andrew]

Karl,

I am not confused regarding copyrights vs. patents - both are supposed 
to be limited in time, patents expiring shorter (IIRC, the maximum 
length of time an inventor can keep a patent going via filing and 
renewals is something like 28 years).

Copyrights were originally something like the lifetime of the owner plus 
30 years (I may be wrong here). This got expanded to lifetime + 70 
years, and I think recently it was bumped up (or attempted to be bumped 
up) to lifetime+120 years.

Like I said - during one of these copyright "reform" periods (might have 
been the Sonny Bono extension), one of the people involved made mention 
that in his opinion a "limited time" (as per the Constitution) meant 
"lifetime of the universe/world, minus one day". That is the attitude we 
are dealing with.

Under such a scheme (and arguably even now, since every time Disney sees 
that Steamboat Willy Micky Mouse comes up for PD, they lobby to get the 
copyright extended and retroactive!) nothing would ever reach the public 
domain.

This does nothing to "advance and promote the arts", as mandated by the 
Constitution.

It is pure greed, nothing more.

-- Andrew L. Ayers
    Glendale, Arizona