The best way to address copyright and patent law is “use it or lose it”.
In effect, making it like the General Mining Act of 1872, which basically said that anyone could stake a claim anywhere, but you had to either invest $500 a year in improving that claim, or recover $500 in profit from it, *or* you would lose your claim. It was a huge success and having mines all over the place was a huge boon to America.
As far as copyright and patent law go, there are vast numbers of companies that own copyrights and patents, but never use them, and sue anyone else who uses a similar idea. And this is a terrible burden on innovation and business and hurts our economy.
Disney is a good example of how this new law would work.
Right now, their character Mickey Mouse is worth a fortune to them every year. They use it frequently, and they defend their copyright. Therefore they should legitimately be able to keep their copyright.
However, they also own the rights to the movie Song of the South, which they did sell, but no longer sell, nor will they allow anyone else to sell. Since they are refusing to do so, they should lose their copyright protections for it, so others could sell their movie.
Taken to the extreme, the copyright and patent industries have vast libraries of content and invention that they formerly sold, but now just library and do not retail. Some just because they don’t think they could make a profit from it.
So they need an ultimatum. “Either you sell it, or you lose your government protection, and somebody else can sell it. But you can no longer just sit on it.”
The problem with eternal copyrights is that big corporations wind up owning the shared culture, and you are not allowed to build on what went before and make it your own.
I say copyright should end with the death of the original author, or seventy years, whichever comes first.
People get sued for singing "Happy Birthday," for God's sake. That song should be in the public domain.
Walt Disney has been dead for fifty years. He got his fair share from his copyrights.
I don’t know how trademark and copyright laws differ, but I think this is more of a trademark issue if it makes a difference at all.
There are other examples. Champagne has to come from the champagne region of France. Just like Bordeaux. Port comes from Portugal. Technically, to be a Bourbon it has to come from Bourbon County, KY... Though that seems to be less enforced.
The thing with trademarks though is they have to be vigorously defended every time they’re infringed. Once you start letting others get away with using your trademark, you lose it. Something like this, where it has -never- really been enforced before... Seems like a horse/barn situation. It’s way too late to start asserting a TM now, after decades of inattention.