LC-24 · Corporate
Copyright terms that outlive the author
A story locked for a century
In ordinary words
A work created today by a company can remain under copyright for 95 years. Works by individuals last for the author’s life plus 70 years. The public domain waits.
Why people call it a crime
People think a reasonable monopoly for creators became a permanent lease for catalogs. Extending the term of existing works felt, to critics, like taking from the commons.
A scene, not a hypothetical statute
A film from your grandparents’ childhood can still be owned, licensed, and pulled off a website. The creator may be long dead. The term is doing what the 1998 statute ordered.
In legal terms
The Copyright Act of 1976 and the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 set the current terms. In Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186 (2003), the Court held Congress may extend terms of already-created works without violating the Copyright Clause or the First Amendment. Golan v. Holder (2012) allowed restoration of some foreign works.
The Court deferred to Congress on the meaning of “limited times,” noting the term still ends. Trade agreements also pushed harmonization with European life-plus-70 terms.
17 U.S.C. § 302; Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186 (2003).
Where it stops being legal
Copying in-term works without a license or a fair-use defense is infringement. Claiming copyright in a public-domain work, or in facts, is not.