But what interests me (perhaps because I’m European) is whether the majority of commercially interesting works had longer protection in EU or in VS before the CTEA (and how’s this balance after the CTEA). Maybe this would help to see who is leading this Race of developing ‘weapons’ of copyright protection (or maybe in Lessig’s view: ‘Weapons of Massive Free Culture Destruction’…).

I believe there�s significant good in having uniform laws on patents and copyrights world-wide, even if they�re less than ideal.

You keep saying that like it is a fact. First I don’t accept it as a fact and second the CTEA did not create uniform laws world-wide, so it does not even get points for this, even if your statement was true. Instead the CTEA has just left us with non-uniform, terrible (far, far, far, far from ideal) laws on the copyrights.

Legislation is a balancing of interests and principles, and sometimes this exercise is quite complex. Attributing motives to the Congress is often a very satisfying avocation, but, like calling your opponent in debate a “fascist”, it’s ultimately not productive. Let’s stick to the effects of the legislation, and leave the motives to the shrinks.

I believe there’s significant good in having uniform laws on patents and copyrights world-wide, even if they’re less than ideal. Is this wrong? Certainly, we’d all prefer to have ideal and uniform laws, but in the real world that never happens. So viewed against that backdrop, the US’s influence on Singapore to get with the US program on copyright can legitimately be viewed as progress, esp. in light of Singapore’s history.

YMMV.

What I do find interesting is how strongly the 70 yrs PMA that is “harmonized”, is deemed a relevant factor by the Court (and the parties for that fact, see the quotes, why did Lessig mention the agreeing with Europeans, as if the Europeans had longer copyright protection, at least on a -commercially- important aspect?).

I mean, can it not be said that your above reaction only proves that if the Act would have had the goal of harmonization, it failed to achieve this goal. But this proof leaves still the possibility that the lead of EU’s 70 yrs PMA has paved the way for the Act and/or the Eldred decision?

The question Seth asks is: if Congress were so keen on motive 1, why did they extend the term for works for hire, when extending the term for works for hire only increased disharmony? And as he rightly concludes, the fact that they increased the disharmony for works made for hire (which is consistent with motive 2 and not motive 1) again makes motive 1 less likely. Thus the data support the conclusion that it is motive 2 and not motive 1 that explains the CTEA.

The point is so obvious that it is astonishing to me that anyone would debate it. Whether you like CTEA or not, whether you like the fact that 3 more categories of copyright are harmonized or not, whether you like the idea that the public domain is tolled for 20 years or not, whether you think that 3 out of 20 is harmonization or not, there is no intellectually credible way to say that Congress was extending the terms to harmonize.