<story><title>Senate passes copyright bill to end 140-year protection for old songs</title><url>https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/09/senate-passes-copyright-bill-to-end-140-year-protection-for-old-songs/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Spivak</author><text>The goal of copyright is not to put works into the public domain, it&amp;#x27;s to allow the creator to extract all the possible value from their work. This has been the basis for every copyright extension and the courts have agreed seeing little value in letting works go public domain.</text></item><item><author>swebs</author><text>Wow, from 140 years to 110 years.&lt;p&gt;For comparison, patents only last 20 years.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>telchar</author><text>Presumably you&amp;#x27;re speaking cynically about how copyright is treated. For the official, stated reason:&lt;p&gt;Article I Section 8. Clause 8 – Patent and Copyright Clause of the Constitution. [The Congress shall have power] “To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”[0]&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;fairuse.stanford.edu&amp;#x2F;law&amp;#x2F;us-constitution&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;fairuse.stanford.edu&amp;#x2F;law&amp;#x2F;us-constitution&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Senate passes copyright bill to end 140-year protection for old songs</title><url>https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/09/senate-passes-copyright-bill-to-end-140-year-protection-for-old-songs/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Spivak</author><text>The goal of copyright is not to put works into the public domain, it&amp;#x27;s to allow the creator to extract all the possible value from their work. This has been the basis for every copyright extension and the courts have agreed seeing little value in letting works go public domain.</text></item><item><author>swebs</author><text>Wow, from 140 years to 110 years.&lt;p&gt;For comparison, patents only last 20 years.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mtgx</author><text>&amp;gt; it&amp;#x27;s to allow the creator to extract all the possible value from their work&lt;p&gt;That may be why governments of the world keep passing copyright laws now and how they view copyright.&lt;p&gt;But copyright was established as a &amp;quot;balance&amp;quot; between making it profitable for the author to create the work (read: not to extract billions of dollars out of a work) in order to &lt;i&gt;benefit the public&lt;/i&gt;. The primary goal has &lt;i&gt;always&lt;/i&gt; been to benefit the public, not the author.&lt;p&gt;Also, one of the reasons why copyright &lt;i&gt;should&lt;/i&gt; be finite and not have too long of a term is because no author has ever created anything - anything at all - &lt;i&gt;from scratch&lt;/i&gt;. They themselves have built &lt;i&gt;upon the work of others&lt;/i&gt;. This is why copyright is meant to be a system where one creates something upon something else, and then someone new can create something new upon that previous work, and so on.&lt;p&gt;Copyright was meant to be a &lt;i&gt;kickstarting&lt;/i&gt; mechanism for authors, not a rent-seeking one, which is how it&amp;#x27;s used today.&lt;p&gt;If you still don&amp;#x27;t see this what I&amp;#x27;m trying to say from my comment, I highly suggest you watch this video:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=nJPERZDfyWc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=nJPERZDfyWc&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>