Z:gnu-www-ja-copyright-and-globalization--ae7a4c-=3Cb=3ESTALLMAN=3C/b=3E: I agree that/en

STALLMAN: I agree that shortening the time span of copyright is a good idea. There is absolutely no need in terms of encouraging publication for a possibility of copyrights' lasting as much as 150 years, which, in some cases, it can under present law. Now the companies were saying that a 75-year copyright on a work made for hire was not long enough to make possible the production of their works. I'd like to challenge those companies to present projected balance sheets for 75 years from now to back up that contention. What they really wanted was just to be able to extend the copyrights on the old works, so that they can continue restricting the use of them. But how you can encourage greater production of works in the 1920s by extending copyright today escapes me, unless they have a time machine somewhere. Of course, in one of their movies, they had a time machine. So maybe that's what affected their thinking.