The U.S. Constitution authorizes copyright as a limited monopoly granted to authors and inventors, for a limited time, in order to promote progress in science and the useful arts. If copyright laws were still reasonable, like the original term of 14 years - renewable once for 14 more if the author is still alive - none of these 70+-year-old recordings would still be under copyright.
A system that allows lawyers to bury old works 70+ years after they were created, by authors who are long since dead, is clearly out of control.
The concept that corporations can have control over the works of a long dead person and can claim damages for people archiving and distributing those works is stupid.
I’m reading the Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg and just heard a story how the toothpaste craze in the early 20th century was started by Pepsodent linking toothpaste to people feeling the film on their teeth. But this film isn’t bad and toothpaste doesn’t do anything to help with it. You can get rid of the film with anything, like eating an apple.
It’s dumb that people would feel this film and want to use pepsodent to brush away the film. But they made billions.
Lots of dumb things make money. Doesn’t mean they should. And certainly doesn’t mean they should to the limitation or destruction of other value (in this case maximalist copyright laws are endangering the preservation of culture).
