Supreme Court on U.S. Copyright Law

Apparently the U.S. Supreme court just decided 7-2 that copyright in
the United States should be such that by the time a work copyrighted
today actually expires, less than 1 book out of 10,000 will enter in
to the public domain due to copyright expiration:  that is unless an
extension is passed yet again, which seems to be a certainty, as the
Supreme Court has said the Congress can extend copyright ad nauseum.


If the New York Times' estimates of 7 years for information doubling
may be considered at all correct, then this is what will happen in a
United States under the new copyright law, EVEN IF we considered 100
percent of current information now be entered into the Public Domain
as an incentive to let this law stand:

 0 years 1/1 of today's information in the Public Domain     100%   !!!
 7 years 1/2 of today's information in the Public Domain      50%
14 years 1/4 of today's information in the Public Domain      25%
21 years 1/8 of today's information in the Public Domain      12.5%
28 years 1/16 of today's information in the Public Domain     6.25%
35 years 1/32 of today's information in the Public Domain     3.125%
42 years 1/64 of today's information in the Public Domain     1.5625%
49 years 1/128 of today's information in the Public Domain    0.78125%
56 years 1/256 of today's information in the Public Domain    0.390625%
A63 years 1/512 of today's information in the Public Domain    0.1953125%
70 years 1/1024 of today's information in the Public Domain   0.09765625%
77 years 1/2048 of today's information in the Public Domain   0.048828125%
84 years 1/4096 of today's information in the Public Domain   0.0244140625%
91 years 1/8192 of today's information in the Public Domain   0.01220703125%
96 years for something copyrighted to day to expire. . . .
98 years 1/16384 of today's information in the Public Domain  0.006103515625%


Obviously the goal is to have virtually no public domain left at all. . . .

Of course, there are people who will try to make this very NOT obvious!


Michael S. Hart
<[email protected]>
Project Gutenberg
Principal Instigator
"*Internet User ~#100*"



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