Protection is for a limited period

Reader comment on: Science and the Profit Motive

Submitted by Lyle (United States), Feb 6, 2010 21:05

The consitution explicitly says that protection of copyrights and patents is for a limited period, for patents it's 20 years. The issue is now that for copyrights it's 95 years and will be extended to protect Mickey Mouse. 95 years is IMHO but not the Supreme court's not a limited period. Since it's to promote invention and writing one could well ask about the life +75 year term for human authors since once dead there are few incentives to do more work. Just allows the heirs to live well. Perhaps we should back it up to 25-30 years. Beyond that a fee should be due to pay for the protection, after all the government is giving a service and should get paid for the service.

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