the race to the top continues

There’s a very interesting article in the Times (registration blah blah blah) about a new push in Europe to increase copyright terms. Let’s remember the sequence here. Germany increased its terms to compensate for WWII. The EU then increased its terms to match Germany. The US then increased its terms to “harmonize” with the EU. That was the Sonny Bono Act. But of course, the “harmony” of the Sonny Bono Act was like some of the worst of the Bono and Cher acts — disharmony. (For a chart showing how the Sonny Bono Act actually increased disharmony between US and EU terms, see Dennis Karjala’s page). So to respond to the disharmony caused by the Sonny Bono Act, now Europe is calling for another increase in their term. Japan too is doing the same.

Jason Schultz’s work shows clearly what we’ve been arguing for a very long time: Longer terms lock up much more than it could ever benefit. This spiral of increasing terms will mean that less will be available, not more. Obviously, there is a world of work to do before this message is understood.