Quote:
Originally Posted by DonRotolo
Copyrights are valid for a far longer period because the advance of creativity is relatively quite slow.
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I don't think that's strictly true: early copyrights were often for much shorter terms, and yet were intended for the same public purposes as today. Indeed, it's probably fair to say that in the last century, the advance of creativity has accelerated—but that period has nevertheless seen the greatest
increases in the term of copyright.
I think the main factor driving copyright term extension is private economic benefit, rather than social benefit. There's basically no downside, from a copyright holder's perspective, because to them, the value of their work (which they control and earn money from) greatly outweighs the value of others' cultural property (which they'd be able to eventually use for free).