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I think this memo is a bad idea. While it may be true that 95 years (or 70 years plus the life of the author) is too long, his system of only 12 years for free, plus then a tax on any time after that is unworkable. The tax goes up to 10% of all REVENUE, not profits - and given studios often have less than a 10% overall profit margin, is becomes simply crazy.

And furthermore, why should conservatives increase taxes by more? Aren’t they high enough already?

Furthermore, studios are having rampant piracy problems today. While many people would surely cheer this, I do not. Cheating is cheating.

Ninety five years is not too long. I am of the opinion that copyright should be for perpetuity.

I think this memo is a bad idea. While it may be true that 95 years (or 70 years plus the life of the author) is too long, his system of only 12 years for free, plus then a tax on any time after that is unworkable. The tax goes up to 10% of all REVENUE, not profits - and given studios often have less than a 10% overall profit margin, is becomes simply crazy.

There is no reason for a new tax regime. That's just a typical big-government solution to a problem created by the government itself.

The entire issue of copyright can be fixed simply by returning to what the law was when this country was founded. Authors would have copyright on registered works for 14 years, with the opportunity to renew copyright one time. 28 years of copyright is plenty for any work. It's rediculous that the entire Beatles catalog is still under copyright

his system of only 12 years for free, plus then a tax on any time after that is unworkable

It is not a "tax", it's a fee, incurred if and only if you choose to use a particular government service. Why should everybody pay for something that only certain people choose to benefit from?

The tax goes up to 10% of all REVENUE, not profits - and given studios often have less than a 10% overall profit margin, is becomes simply crazy.

That's the industry's own fault -- look up "Hollywood Accounting". If they hadn't built up a track record of cooking the books to pretend that they weren't making any profits in order to screw performers out of the payments stipulated in their contracts, it would be possible to trust them with a system that charged based on profit, but that isn't the world in which we live.

Furthermore, studios are having rampant piracy problems today.

Yeah, and I have rampant crabgrass problems in my lawn. Should the government fix that? Should they do it without charging me a fee?