News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:The US copyright office has struck down a major effort fo... by jmward01 on Wednesday November 27, 2024 @03:48PM (#42259609)
The actual text of the US constitution maybe?

Article I Section 8 Enumerated Powers Clause 8 Intellectual Property

        To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

Seems like the idea is to promote innovation by making sure it is for a limited time only seems pretty ingrained in the idea.
Re:The US copyright office has struck down a major effort fo... by tmtvl on Wednesday November 27, 2024 @04:02PM (#42259737)
If it says 'for a limited time', then wouldn't tying itmto the lifetime of the author be unconstitutional? Because strictly speaking it's impossible to predict whether an author's life will end.
Re:The US copyright office has struck down a major effort fo... by samatman on Wednesday November 27, 2024 @04:13PM (#42259835)
It's in fact trivially easy to predict whether an author's life will end.

Watch: I predict an author's life will end. I give it very high odds indeed.

Re:The US copyright office has struck down a major effort fo... by tastyfreeze on Wednesday November 27, 2024 @04:39PM (#42260049)
Corporations can hold copyright and can be undying.
Re:The US copyright office has struck down a major effort fo... by HWR_14 on Wednesday November 27, 2024 @05:01PM (#42260244)
If the author is a real person, it's life of the author plus. If it is a corporation it is a fixed amount of time.
Re:The US copyright office has struck down a major effort fo... by bitwize on Wednesday November 27, 2024 @04:22PM (#42259911)
Decided in Eldred v. Ashcroft. As long as Congress stipulates a non-infinite copyright term, it's constitutional. Given that the chance of a human being eventually ceasing to live has been 100% so far, it's legitimate to assume that life + n years is still a finite period of time.
Re:The US copyright office has struck down a major effort fo... by cess11 on Thursday November 28, 2024 @01:10AM (#42262866)
"Progress of Science and useful Arts" isn't utilitarian in the sense "benefit society as a whole".