Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/05/18/orrin-fucking-hatch.html
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144 years
I won’t be around then.
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144 years! That’s gross. 
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Then it went to the Senate, and Orrin Hatch turned it into shit.
It’s a given that most senators turn bills into shit, but Hatch is practically a shit fairy.
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Lest pointing out the obvious, but: Jesus! This is the very antithesis of what copyright is actually meant to be doing!
It’s like, ‘Okay, here’s the bill on sensible gun reform.’ - ‘What’s it say?’ - ‘Aehm, it says it is now law that every school teacher (PreK-11) must be carrying an assault rifle each day, in class, locked and loaded to go.’ - ‘Oh…!’
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On the bright side, none of this is going to matter once civilization collapses.
FWIW I wrote my representatives. Cory Gardner ® has made it clear in previous correspondences that he could give a fuck about how I feel regarding how he votes. Michael Bennet (D) “seems to care”, but we will see how it goes.
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Yeah, but you are around right now, and the law is being made right now.
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Given that 144 years is longer than the lifetime of the oldest person whose age has ever been verified, could one argue that it’s no longer a “limited Time[s]” as written in the Copyright Clause of the US Constitution and so unconstitutional?
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‘Compensating legacy artists’? sorry, if they haven’t been compensated enough over the last 46 years it’s a bit of a lost cause really.
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Not to give the weaselly ****ers any ideas (apologies to actual weasels) but won’t they just wheel out the good old ‘corporations are people’ fiction.
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I’m an artist with not much fame and no kids, but if I did have both, I kind of bristle at the thought of my kids expecting a free ride off my work.
Theo Van Gogh’s wife finally getting the prices Vincent deserved for his paintings after he died? That’s one thing. But royalties in perpetuity seems rather extreme to me.
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HOW AM I GOING TO PUT MY GREAT-GRANDKIDS THROUGH COLLEGE
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In 1789 Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison and proposed a number of articles to be included in the Bill of Rights, among them this one:
Art. 9. Monopolies may be allowed to persons for their own productions in literature and their own inventions in the arts for a term not exceeding — years but for no longer term and no other purpose.
Note the repeated use of their own here. Jefferson did not propose making this a transferrable or heritable right.
He left the number of years to fill in the blank as a subject for debate, but generally supported some small multiple of 7 years (that being the standard length of an apprenticeship).
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Seems fair. Too many people in the world seem to think that exploitation is an honorable thing.
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I think this isn’t being clear about what’s going on here. All pre-1972 sound recordings are effectively copyrighted until 2067 under state laws. This is merely making sure they’re covered under federal digital recording laws. It would be nice if Congress sunset all the sound recordings and let the earlier sound recordings go into the public domain, but this bill is at least not extending the duration of the copyright on anything.
Only 137 years until Rebecca Black’s “Friday” IS ALL MINE!
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Every time I hear about that prick it’s always something filthy vile.
Fuck that guy. Feed him into a mangle feet first.
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