The point of my tirade, as you put it, is that there may be an "illusion" of some sort of point where the copyright is no longer valid and the work enters the public domain, but from a purely practical position, that is either set so far into the future that the original work can't be "expected" to still exist in many cases or it keeps being extended universally, instead of providing more specific extensions based on "if" the owner still uses it as a viable commodity. In either case, for all practical purposes, works can't enter the public domain, since they either cease to exist before that happens or the copyright is dragged on and on, with no end in sight.
Its the flip side of the problem with patent law, where in that case the problem isn't, "It will go on forever", but just, "We don't have the time or resources to make sure everything *is* unique and nontrivial, so nearly everything gets an approval stamp anyway." Both sides of the equation are getting to be quite screwed up and its the public interest that is getting kicked in the shins from it.
And I did suggest a solution. Adjust copyright so that companies have to show a viable level of interest in a work to "get" any extension, not just drop it on a shelf and hope someone else comes along that wants to buy rights to it. |