And times have certainly changed since 1976. It definitely needs some modernization there. Home movies and social media are two big things that needs some sort of fair use protection. Fan-made games could use some sort of protection (granted no money is involved with the fan-made games.) I can think of a load of stuff that has came into existence since '76.
Concerning what you ninja'd in there. I think better/modernized Fair Use laws would help out with this considerably.

A movie copyright for a film should only last as long as the movie is in a theater. After that, home distribution will require a new copyright.

Problem with hollywood and the recording industry is that they pump out so many clones/sequels. And they wonder why going to the movies is not as good as before?

They should get rid of physical media (ie CDs) because the promise of cheaper prices (because it's cheaper to produce) was a lie from the recording industry. $18.00 for one CD album was not uncommon. Digital is the future. If these dinosaurs are too stubborn to advance, they can die.

Plus the copyright should belong to the original creator not a licensee. So when the creator dies it becomes public domain as intended by the copyrigh law before. It was not meant to grant someone eternal ownership. So NO George Lucas should not be able to will it to his daughter.

Lots of recording artists are now looking at non-record company ways of getting music produced. PledgeMusic allows bands to setup pledge drives with their fanbase to fund the production. It works out supremely well, the fans are happy, the band has control over distribution and doesn't have to deal with a suit at some recording company.

SOPA/PIPA got me thinking about 1984 and Farenheit 451.

Rather than simply addressing the duration, copyright needs to return to its original purpose: protecting artists from publishers—not providing ammunition for publishers to punish teenagers.

Copyright should last around 15 years, if you believe Dr. Rufus Pollock (http://rufuspollock.org/tags/copyright/) who did extensive research on the economically optimal copyright term.

In the US, don't expect any interesting sound recordings to become public domain until 2067. How far in the future is that? Seven years earlier, on September 14 (in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri) the United Nations Starship Unity launches from the remnants of Earth to the Alpha Centauri System and the planet Chiron.

This is of course crazy. Personally I could live with a 10 year copyright, wit the possibility of one and only one 10 year extension, at a considerable fee and with registration (requires a non-DRM'ed copy). The considerable fee will pay for the whole system, the remainder should benefit new and upcoming artists, and another important reason is that it prevents frivolous renewals (where the likes of Sony and Warner would just renew everything). For it to be renewed, it will have to have some commercial value.

The SCOTUS decision today where Congress can just take works out of the Public Domain and re-copyright them without any compensation to the public, works in reverse too: once a new International Treaty is signed limiting copyright term to a sane limit, there will be no compensation required, either.

Note that when a game becomes public domain, but GOG creates a derivative work that allows it to run under a newer operating system, the derivative work (but not the original work) can again be copyrighted.

Sounds like they would enforce SOPA/PIPA with this:

[url=http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:S.1867]http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:S.1867[/url]:

Hell no. If they want a civil war that will start it.

I didn't say that it's not an affirmative defense, simply that in the vast majority of cases the law itself is enough to stop you getting sued unfairly. Yes, it requires admission that you used it without authority, but in the context of affirming that you didn't need authority to use it in the first place.

"A party really bent on hurting you that has the resources" can and will do so, whether it be through claiming copyright or other means. Changing the law won't solve that. Hell, even I've both done that to other businesses and had it done to mine - if you can't beat 'em, sue 'em or scare them into thinking you will. I realize you probably find that to be a disgusting attitude, but I have a responsibility to my staff to do whatever I can in the interests of the business, and all the competition does the same, we wouldn't survive otherwise.

Oh, and sorry for late reply, spent the day travelling on work.

I agree with you about income not keeping up inflation. My opinion about people being able to afford basic cars is probably biased from where I live. Other than taking a hit on 401(k), my state hasn't been in much of a recession, and we don't have big problems with homelessness.

I'll take your word for it, but many other professions have the same problem. Let's take woodworking for example. Someone might say that anyone can build a bookshelf, but if you want to get it "right", it takes years of experience and trial and error. Those previous efforts can still be sold, just not at as a high of value of the one that was done "right". The main thing it takes is the right material and muscle memory , and there's no way to develop that by reading up about the best techniques.

I bought a guitar and some sound recording equipment a few years back, but decided that I'll stick to what I'm good at. I don't want to spend the time to develop the muscle memory needed to be good at guitar. I might learn to be good enough to make a transition audio clip in between a sitcom video scene, but I know that's all I'm ever going to be able to do.

Maybe so, but most of the world doesn't operate this way. It seems like a lot of people (not talking about you) equate copyright with credit of authorship. Everything man-made would not exist without someone putting effort into making it into a usable form. A woodworker doesn't get protection from mass-produced, sometimes inferior products. Should we really think that building machines that can quickly put together cabinets is different from a printing press?

I don't have the foresight to know, but my answer is that whoever hired U2 better believe that it was worth it to them because they'll have a hard time selling a million copies.

I'm having a hard time coming up with analogies without running into problems, but I'll try anyway. Why does someone spend thousands of dollars fixing up a '68 Camaro SS? Because they want it. Maybe they think their reputation will increase by owning it. The problem I'm having is that the person can then sell the Camaro to make some money back if they want. I could argue that an authenticated master copy made with a high-quality material could be done for someone hiring U2, like the golden record on the Voyager, which they could sell to make back some of their money if they don't want it anymore. The copyright industry is set up to make money selling millions of copies though.

This is an example of how to make money allowing free digital copies. There will still be people that want a physical item for something they care about. I specifically want to note the $300 Ultra Deluxe edition limited to 2,500 copies. It sold out in 2 days. That's $750,000 without focusing on selling a million copies, most of which didn't have to be paid to publishers and studios and went to the authors of the album. It also helped with selling NIN concert tickets. Not bad for a 36-track instrumental album that didn't get any broadcast radio play. I know that NIN is well known already and has some dedicated fans, but an average artist making a product from home would be happy making a small fraction of that.

This is similar to how Kickstarter works. There are tiers to the pledges with higher quality content offered to the higher priced pledges.

The problem I'm currently having with copyright is that it's highly confusing. I'd have to look up the date, but sometime around the 1980's everything falling under copyright that was created began to be automatically protected. How does a person know if the author wanted their work used or not? With my wedding slide-show example, I've come to the conclusion that every one of those that I've seen has been illegal.

Honestly, I wouldn't mind being able to charge for video editing to make a little something on the side. Would this be considered a commercial purpose though? I'm not selling copies, just my ability to make a personal video.

Something I've started doing recently is putting Creative Commons music on my mp3 player and listening to that in my vehicle instead of the radio so I get familiar with it. Even then, I've decided to look for music that doesn't have the -NC- (non-commercial) restriction on it (which would sadly exclude the NIN example I gave) . I would prefer to be able to make a remix/mashup, but I can live with that as long as it doesn't have the NC. My thinking is that what if I make a video that no one paid me to make and I put it up on my (hypothetical) website promoting my business. Would that violate the NC restriction? I don't know. It's like too many regulations. I need to hire a couple expensive lawyers just to try to figure it out, making it like a barrier to entry. When all I did was consume products, I didn't care. But now if I actually want to use something I paid for, my opinion has changed. Copyright decreases value in my mind. I'd rather donate to an artist on Jamendo.

Even then, who would want to pay me to use music they haven't heard before? Not many people. When I made a slide-show, the people who wanted me to make it said that they would buy the popular song they wanted and send it to me so that I could use it. This just shows that people don't know what copyright means and that it doesn't fit in with their idea of paying money as a transfer of ownership. If more people figured it out, I'd bet that there would be a massive shift to something less restrictive.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/04/how-copyright-law-hurts-music-from-chuck-d-to-girl-talk/236975/
I linked that in a different thread one time. The part I want to address is the section about Paul's Boutique (I see hedwards mentioned that album too). "Based on the number and type of samples in that record, Peter figured out that Capitol Records would lose 20 million dollars on a record that sold 2.5 million units." Now if compulsory licensing was frictionless like they suggest in that article and copyright was pretty much invisible, out of sight, I wouldn't care that much about copyright. I still wouldn't agree with it on principles, but it wouldn't be that much of an issue.

So I'm not arguing that I want to distribute copies of anything. I'm thinking that I would sell my service to make or help edit a video. I'm thinking that it would be similar to selling a water pressure washer. I'm not selling water, just selling a way to use it.

I do find that to be a disgusting attitude. If you're going to engage in it you might as well follow it to its logical conclusion and simply have all the key employees in any competing business killed.
In lieu of getting an extremely shortened copyright I'd happily take codifying a lot more fair use into law. And if it turned out and you were right, that it obviated the need for a shortened copyright entirely, I would be entirely pleased to have been wrong.
Technically it didn't actually cover most of the stuff you're thinking of at all. "Useful arts" meant stuff more like engineering and that kind of thing, not painting or writing. All that other stuff was amended in later.

75 years is too long
i woud say 50 years is enough.
The current system is insane.