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Politics : The Castle -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (974)	1/17/2003 10:31:07 AM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7936

Patents expire after, I think, 17 years. Why should Elvis's heirs have more rights to profit from his work than Merck shareholders have to profit from their company's work developing a new drug, or a the family of the inventor of intermittent windshild wipers should have to profit from his invention? IMO, frankly, a copyright period of a flat 25 years would be plenty of time to protect a person's rights to their effort. After that, it should be public domain, just as inventions. And I don't see any reason why patent and copyright protection periods shouldn't be the same. Either lengthen patent protections, or shorten copyright.