[Dixielandjazz] Copyrights

[LARRY'S Signs and Large Format Printing]

It's the mouse.  Congress has virtually insured that copyrights will go on
forever because of Mickey Mouse.  Mickey was due to come out of copyright
this year (or possibly next) and instead of passing a special law for the
mouse they extended it.  Now how much I don't know but it's for a long time.
In the future there won't be any public domain except on the things that are
already public domain.  This does impact OKOM because tunes that were
written in the early part of the 1900's probably will not become public
domain which means if we record a tune we will get to pay ASCAP.  I
personally don't have a problem with that but when it's to the great grand
something's of the composer I think that's a little much.  Don't confuse
patents, trademarks and copyrights they all have different terms.

I think everyone would agree that trademarks should  be able to be extended
almost indefinitely.  Patents are good for 17 years to prevent monopolies
and big business from dominating technology and products.  It's hard to
understand why  written or other works of art should be virtually protected
forever except on a individual basis.  Like anything there are two sides to
the story.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bruce Stangeland" <stangeland at earthlink.net>
To: <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2005 1:37 AM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Copyrights


> Tom,
>
> Thanks for your thoughts on ASCAP and its enforcement of copyrights.
> I can't understand why the copyright laws should continue to be extended
far
> beyond the originally intended time period.
>
> I used to work in research, and earned a number of patents. These only
> lasted 17 years (or perhaps 20 now that we're getting in sync with the
EU).
>
> Why should a patented idea, which often takes years and sometimes millions
> of dollars to develop get less protection than a song, which might have
> taken a few days to write?
>
> Bruce Stangeland
>
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