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Congress wants to extend the copyright on some sound recordings to 144 years

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Re: Congress wants to extend the copyright on some sound recordings to 144 years

#71
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the most prominent recent efforts was the line-item veto, but the Supreme Court (rightly) said that it requires a constitutional amendment. You also have to be careful what you wish for. For years everybody bemoaned so-called earmarking. Congress finally prohibited earmarking in their procedures. But many academics have suggested that an unintended consequence was less compromise and greater partisanship in Co…

Line-item veto sounds interesting, but extremely dangerous. Some bills meanings and intent could be completely reversed by vetoing a single provision in e.g. definitions section. This wouldn't fix the bundling issue, it would just make the president another party in it, and give them super-congressman powers with the ability to essentially make legislature all by themselves. (And the first couple of paragraphs on the…

> Line-item veto sounds interesting, but extremely dangerous. Some bills meanings and intent could be completely reversed by vetoing a single provision in e.g. definitions section.

Line-item veto, both where currently used in states (for the most part, Wisconsin seems to be a radical exception) and when it was (unconstitutionally) adopted at the federal level, does not allow that.

It allows separate veto of individual appropriations of money within a bill that included one or more appropriations. It doesn't allow separate veto of arbitrary provisions of law.

This can still drastically alter the intent of a bill, but not it in the way you suggest.

Re: Congress wants to extend the copyright on some sound recordings to 144 years

#72

The main motivation for extending copyright 'till the cows come home is most likely to keep material from becoming public domain and thereby from making sure it doesn't compete with the latest thrash the industry is producing. If their latest auto-tuned plastic one-hit wonder had to compete against a wealth of free-as-in-beer music the risk would be for the latter to become popular among the cool kids. No free music…

A lot of it already is. I'm kind of amazed at the number of young people listening back to that time period.

Re: Congress wants to extend the copyright on some sound recordings to 144 years

#73
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if demand is relatively constant. Nothing is less constant than the demand for entertainment, and that's reflected in current pricing. A new blockbuster movie costs $15 in 3D, $12 in 2D. A month later it costs $6 at the second-run theater. Three months later it costs $20 on Blu-Ray for as many times as you want to watch it. A year later it's included in your HBO subscription. A year after that you can buy the di…

There are notable exceptions. The Bambi DVD, which was created in 1942, is listed on Amazon for $28. In 20 years, it will be $50.

Well... the Bambi film came out in 1942. You can buy the Signature Edition DVD+BR for $30, but you can also buy a 2 disc special edition for $7.49, the Anniversary Edition for $15.96, and a Blu-Ray for $14.27. We haven't reached the used market, where eBay can get you a copy for $5, most of which will go to shipping it to you.

Re: Congress wants to extend the copyright on some sound recordings to 144 years

#74
post #6

> Music Modernization Act I don't know if/how it could legally be done, but I'd love to see "cute" names for laws barred from use in Congress. Refer to them all by number not brand names dreamed up by marketing professionals to make the proposed law seem unassailable ( "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act" aka USA PATRIOT Act).

> I don't know if/how it could legally be done, but I'd love to see "cute" names for laws barred from use in Congress. It can't even in principal be done in a binding way in mere statute, since newer law wins in case of a conflict, and even were it done by Constitutional Amendment, it would be hard to give it teeth. Plus, it's plenty useful to have memorable named for laws, rather having to remember bill/session numb…

> Plus, it's plenty useful to have memorable named for laws, rather having to remember bill/session numbers (or, worse, the weird practice in California and some other places where laws, even when they actually have friendly names, are frequently referred to by bill numbers without session numbers, even long after adoption, when such identifiers are decidedly non-unique.)

That's very easy to fix by adding the year and jurisdiction where appropriate. For example, in my opinion, Prop 8 does not need any qualifier but should there be any ambiguity we could call it the 2008 California Prop 8. I don't think the value is there in banning names though. For example, the CFAA* would be just as horrible with any other name.

*While we are at it, please support a complete repeal of the CFAA. https://www.eff.org/helpout

Re: Congress wants to extend the copyright on some sound recordings to 144 years

#75
post #6

> Music Modernization Act I don't know if/how it could legally be done, but I'd love to see "cute" names for laws barred from use in Congress. Refer to them all by number not brand names dreamed up by marketing professionals to make the proposed law seem unassailable ( "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act" aka USA PATRIOT Act).

In the UK, at least, there are rules against this. A government bill’s short title

> must describe the content of the bill in a straightforwardly factual manner. An argumentative title or a slogan is not permitted.

From Erskine May, what the Financial Times calls “the bible on parliamentary procedure”.

https://www.ft.com/content/05253602-ce4a-3f64-8ace-6a6f03876...

Re: Congress wants to extend the copyright on some sound recordings to 144 years

#76

Counterpoint: No, the CLASSICS Act is not a “term extension” http://www.copyhype.com/2018/05/no-the-classics-act-is-not-a... I'm hardly a fan of copyright, but the arguments that this is not actually an extension seem sound.

That article is to verbose for me to really find the punchline.

Re: Congress wants to extend the copyright on some sound recordings to 144 years

#77
post #6

> Music Modernization Act I don't know if/how it could legally be done, but I'd love to see "cute" names for laws barred from use in Congress. Refer to them all by number not brand names dreamed up by marketing professionals to make the proposed law seem unassailable ( "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act" aka USA PATRIOT Act).

How about having a mechanism to allow the opposition to vote on a secondary name which will be included alongside the primary name in official correspondence? Yes, it will degrade into "Bill to Save America / Bill to Destroy America" most of the time, but that's the point: it makes the absurdity easy to spot and difficult to ignore.

[deleted]

Re: Congress wants to extend the copyright on some sound recordings to 144 years

#78
post #20

So glad I live in Canada. American corporatist evil seems boundless.

Canada signed the TPP which makes copyright 70 years after the death of the creator. Not exactly paradise.

Canada had those terms removed from the TPP after the US pulled out.

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2018/01/canada-successfully-stand...

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