Pentad
I disagree that ANYONE should have copyright benefits for 70 years;I firmly believe the old laws from several decades ago provided a much better balance of originator's rights versus society's rights.
14 years plus ONE renewal of another 14 should be plenty of time.
I am reminded of Tolkien whining about not receiving money for his LOTR books decades after the original publishing.If the copyright laws of today had been in effect for the past few hundred years,perhaps Shakespeare,Milton, and others would not be classics;actually I believe excessive copyrights retard the progress of a society.
Nothing was created in a vacumn,all build on knowledge and work of those before.
The U.S. Congress is much too easily swayed by lobbyists and cash donations;plus simply feel the "need" to pass laws to show they are "earning" their legislator's pay.
The change in copyright laws to benefit Disney which made billions customizing old fairy tales,and also protecting companies like Microsoft and Apple which have demonstrably violated the patent or copyright laws themselves(and the blue-box background of Apple founders) just shows that money can have the rules of the game changed to benefit money.
FInally,I contend that most people do have an innate sense of right and wrong and most want to do the right thing most of the time;and when their sense of rightness conflicts with any society's laws the people will do what they feel should be right weighed against the likelihood of being caught and punished.
This is a reason I oppose red-light cameras since the camera doesn't know or care that you went through the intersection after being able to see that there is no other traffic at 3 a.m. Tuesday morning,just a suspicious person loitering across the street(possible carjacker?).
The minimum number of laws and justice based on real,not imagined , injury strikes me as better for a free society.Many,of course, do not like the idea of freedom for everyone,so they insist on restrictive laws rigidly enforced except in cases of the elite.
