Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
For the last decade, the Congressional debate over copyright law has been in a stalemate. Content companies have pushed for stronger protections, but their efforts have been stopped by a coalition of technology companies and digital rights groups.
But on Tuesday, we saw a rare moment of bipartisan and trans-industry harmony on copyright law, as the Senate unanimously passed the Music Modernization Act, a bill that creates a streamlined process for online services to license music and federalizes America's bizarre patchwork of state laws governing music recorded before 1972. That will mean effectively shortening the term of protection of older music published between 1923 and 1954—under current law, these songs may not fall into the public domain until 2067.
The bill managed to get the support of several groups that are normally at each others' throats: music publishers, record labels, songwriters, major technology companies, and digital rights groups.
The bill isn't perfect, but Public Knowledge—a digital rights group that usually opposes legislation sponsored by big content companies—gave the bill its endorsement, describing it as a "significant step forward for music consumers and fans."
The Senate must now negotiate with the House, which passed its own version of the legislation earlier this year. Public Knowledge was not a fan of that legislation because it keeps pre-1972 sound recordings out of the public domain for much longer. The big question now is whether the final version of the bill will look more like the consumer-friendly Senate version or the more industry-friendly House legislation.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday September 20 2018, @01:55PM (1 child)
I don't know what Countries you're talking about. We do have some Shithole Countries. But in America our Patents last 15, or 20 years. 15 if you make something incredibly beautiful (iPad Original). Or 20 if you do the invention. Seems like an eternity in Internet Time. In regular time, it's not a lot.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Thursday September 20 2018, @06:02PM
The copyright in a work of authorship, such as Trump: The Art of the Deal that you chose Tony Schwartz to write for you in 1987, lasts far longer than a patent on an invention. The 20-year patent term is intended to approximate the length of a skilled craftsman's education, whereas for the past century, the international standard copyright term has been the life of the author's grandchildren [pineight.com].