Quote:
Originally Posted by NJBest
These are illegal. You don't want to use them. They violate the laws derived from the constitution.
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"derived" is right. The current copyright laws ALSO violate the law as designed within the spirit of the Constitution:
"The Copyright Clause of the United States Constitution (1787) authorized copyright legislation: "
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." That is, by guaranteeing them a period of time in which they alone could profit from their works, they would be enabled and encouraged to invest the time required to create them, and this would be good for society as a whole. A right to profit from the work has been the philosophical underpinning for much legislation extending the duration of copyright, to the life of the creator and beyond, to their heirs.
T
he original length of copyright in the United States was 14 years, and it had to be explicitly applied for. If the author wished, they could apply for a second 14‑year monopoly grant, but after that the work entered the public domain, so it could be used and built upon by others."
"since January 1, 1978:
The work is copyrighted for the author's life plus 70 years. In other words, 70 years after the day the author dies, the copyright expires. (It used to be the author's life plus fifty years, but the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 extended the term by 20 years.) If there is more than one author, the copyright expires 70 years after the last surviving author's death. If the material was created under a work for hire agreement, the copyright lasts 95 years from first publication, or 120 years from creation, whichever expires first. "
Copyright - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Now just how exactly a dead creator is supposed to profit and thereby be encouraged to create new works is a little beyond me. If we were following the Constitution, anything over 28 years old would be in public domain.
Instead - Warner Brothers claims copyright on a song written in 1893.
‘Happy Birthday’ Lawsuit Challenges Warner/Chappell’s Ownership | Variety
And lets not even get into Henrietta Lacks, and how she and her family were ripped off by force and patents allowed that were built upon her very being.
If you want to claim something is illegal under current law, fine. Just don't try to justify those laws as being in the spirit of the Constitution.
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