Assignment America: Wrong copyright laws (http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20021118-053129-2306r) - UPI, 11/18/02

QuikQuote: In the name of Mickey Mouse and other American icons, we have gradually lengthened that 14-year limit on copyrights. At one time it was as much as 99 years, then scaled back to 75 years, then -- in one of the most anti-American acts of the last century -- suspended entirely in 1998. The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of that year says simply that there will be no copyright expirations for 20 years, meaning that everything published between 1923 and 1943 will NOT be released into the public domain. Presumably they'll take up the matter again in 2018 and decide whether any of these books, movies or songs are ever set free. There are 400,000 of them.
What's especially hypocritical about this law is that many of the works produced in this period, such as "The Wizard of Oz," are based on works from previous centuries that are already in the public domain. It's as though Congress is saying that it would be wrong for the heirs of the Brothers Grimm to own a perpetual copyright to "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves," because it belongs to all people, but Walt Disney's version of it is so sacrosanct it should earn money forever. Besides, if he really IS cryogenically preserved, he'll need those royalties when he comes back to visit. (And this was a man who stole from everybody.)

You hear about stuff like this from time to time where companies like Disney (well mostly them), WB, and the few old movie companies left want to alter laws since there is always money to be made from them.

It's funny how the copyrights varry from case to case. From a music history class, I think he said, the law is life plus 50 years of the holder. It might have been the life of the first holder plus 50 years.