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February 02, 2005

Software Copyrights

[rant]
Can anybody give me a good reason why copyrights on computer software last 95 years? I mean, DOS 1.0 still has 70 years to go, and nothing written since Ada Byron is going into the public domain anytime soon.

The Constitution says "limited times" and 95 years with books or movies might be in some way limited, but for computer software it's about 70 years past infinity.

Yes, I know Professor Lessig is trying again, and I wish him well, but he seems focused on 1st Amendment claims which failed in Eldred. One would think there's an unmade takings case on the Bono extension (the expectancy of the public domain is property, Fletcher vs. Peck, etc), and software terms are unconstitutionally long.

[/rant]

Posted by Kevin Murphy at February 2, 2005 09:08 PM | TrackBack