Shorten excessive copyright terms

It looks like the Hacker News front page is in danger of being taken over by petitions.whitehouse.gov on this first business day of 2013. The petition kindly submitted here for comment reads in full:<p>"Current copyright terms are much longer than necessary for promoting progress. Excessive copyright terms limit the usefulness of the works they cover without leading to the creation of more works.<p>"I ask the government to limit copyright terms to a maximum of 10 years with no exceptions. Compared to current copyright terms 10 years may sound very short, but 10 years is a long time; it may still be too long. I also ask that currently active copyright terms all end within 10 years.<p>"It is not society's duty to reward authors and artists for their creativity or hard work. Copyright should only exist as an incentive. The excessive monopoly terms must end."<p>This is a typical doofus petition to the White House in that the author has not even done the elementary research work of looking up the clause in the federal Constitution about copyright:<p>"The Congress shall have Power . . . 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."<p>United States Constitution, Article I, Section 8 clause 8<p><a href="http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92preface.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92preface.html</a><p>The best way to appeal to Congress (which has the authority on this issue, NOT the President) to change copyright law is to lean hard on the "limited time" language from the Constitution as well as point to real-world examples of places with shorter copyright terms (where?) with beneficial effects for the national economies of those places. Look for empirical examples when arguing about public policy.<p>Note that the United States Supreme Court has already interpreted the "limited time" language from the Constitution broadly enough to allow the current,<p>Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 US 186 (2003).<p><a href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=12147684852241107557&#38;hl=en&#38;as_sdt=2&#38;as_vis=1&#38;oi=scholarr" rel="nofollow">http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1214768485224110...</a><p>long copyright terms in United States law (which was adapted to European law in this regard during my lifetime). Copyright terms in the United States used to be relatively short compared to those in most other countries with modern copyright laws, perhaps because of the constitutional language. But appealing to the constitutional language would be part of the task of persuading Congress to change the current law.

Copyright terms need to be reformed, but 10 years is far too short. Right now almost nothing is entering the Public domain and that's wrong, the books/music/movies of my parents and grandparents are still under copyright.<p>Happy Brthday shows the problems with the system. A killer law review article titled "Copyright and the World's Most Popular Song" traces how a Happy Birthday to You started out life as Good Morning to All a song with the same melody but different words, written as a classroom greeting by two teachers in the 1890's is still under copyright. It's one of the best things I read in 2012 and readable by a non lawyer. <a href="http://docs.law.gwu.edu/facweb/rbrauneis/happybirthday.htm" rel="nofollow">http://docs.law.gwu.edu/facweb/rbrauneis/happybirthday.htm</a><p>The first copyright law in the english language, the Statute of Anne from 1710 had a term of 14 years renewable for another 14 years. Under those terms things like StarWars would be entering the public domain, which given where it is in culture and the profits lucas has seen sound about right.<p>Going to 10 years would mean that most authors/comic book creators would NEVER see movie option money and film studios wouldn't

While we are at it, can we exempt scientific papers from copyright? Copyright only serves the interests of journal publishers, who are entirely redundant now that we have the Internet. Rather than ensuring access to scientific work, copyrights have become a way to restrict access -- even universities cannot guarantee their students and professors access to all journals. Journal articles are reviewed by volunteers, and sometimes journals are even edited by volunteers.<p>We need to stop this nonsense already. Copyright is not an incentive for scientists, it is a burden.

I've been thinking a lot about copyright terms lately, and this is what I have come up with: You get 5 years for "free", just like we have now. The next 5 years cost you $10k. The next costs you $100k. Add a zero every 5 years. It's going to be very difficult to keep a copyright for more than 20 or 25 years, but if it's really worth that much to you, then by all means...

If someone could provide further detail as to the benefit of this, I might be willing to consider signing. I just dont know enough about both arguments to make a determination.

Why this is on the HN home page with only 2 votes I'm not too sure, but it does raise a valid point!

I wanted to vote for this, but 10 years seems kind of short. Maybe something between 10 and the current "life plus 70". I think 28 years seems pretty fair.