On 10/29/2012 10:26 AM, Steve Comstock wrote: > On 10/29/2012 8:23 AM, scott wrote: >> On 10/25/2012 07:35 PM, Lindy Mayfield wrote: <SNIPPAGE> > > Ummm. There are copyright laws, ya' know. > > Do they not expire after 25 years?
<SNIPPAGE> Because of the "Mickey Mouse" [Disney] laws (yes, this is what they are referred to), copyright is not for a set number of years to be renewed by the owner (US IP law up to about 1964 as I recall), but runs until some number of years after the death of the original creator. This is because the owner of the Mickey Mouse copyrights (along with a few others) pushed the US Congress for a change to the copyright laws. They have been modified at least twice since 1964, if my memory serves me correctly. At one point, the extension past demise was based on whether or not the creator was well known (Ok, get a bunch of attorneys together and get them to define that term). So it was something like 10 years for a non-well known author, and 25 years for a well known author. The recent change is causing some to question if what the US Congress did is actually a violation of the US Constitution in this area, as things were intended to go into the public domain after a/an [reasonable] amount of time. That is, a copyright was not to be "inperpetuity". Regards, Steve Thompson ----- Disclaimers: Opinions expressed by this poster may not reflect those of posters employer, IBM. Nothing in this post is to be taken as legal advice, but only as a common man's understanding of what the IP laws may contain at this point in time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
