“For Limited Times”: The Supreme Court Finds the Copyright Term Extension Act Constitutional in Eldred v. Ashcroft, but When Does It End?
Sue Ann Mota In 1993 a European Union directive extended the copyright term to the author’s life plus seventy years. The United States followed suit in 1998 with the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which, like the E.U. directive, extended the copyright term for an individual’s works by twenty years, resulting in a term of the author’s life plus seventy years. It also extended the term for anonymous, pseudonymous, or works made for hire by twenty years, resulting in a term of ninety-five years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever comes first. The CTEA also applied retroactively,...
The Disruption of the U.S. Constitutional Symmetry of Intellectual Property to Gain Conformity with an International Property Framework: A Road to a Global Market or a Tripping Point to the Gradual Collapse of the U.S. Economy?
John C. Hughs In a spectrum of governments that range from totalitarian (dictator or communism) to tribal (without any central government), there is a unique form that provides a symmetrical balance between the government and the independent inventor; this symmetrical balance produces technological advancement. Once this symmetrical balance is discovered, it allows independent inventors to have secure and unchangeable protection from the federal government that facilitates the courage and mentality to take risks of time, effort and wealth. The willingness of free inventors to take a chance on the free market without government intervention but with inventor controlled government exclusionary...