[Criminal Number 18F]

want to maintain antiquated copyright laws

Actually, the constitutional purpose of copyright laws has been twofold:

1. to ensure authors a fair chance to profit, and
2. to ensure that the period during which they might do so was limited, so that their work would ultimately benefit all

Recent changes in the law, not "antiquated" laws, have favoured corporate "collectors" of copyrights over original artists, and the trend is towards extended (and ultimately, perpetual) copyrights held for the benefit of owners who have no relation to creators.

One of the most recent changes came about because the copyright on Mickey Mouse was about to expire, and with Walt Disney long dead his corporate successors saw a possible gravy-train interruption.

The "antiquated" laws were fairly good, and the 1976 change briefly shifted the balance towards the creators. That has been thoroughly overthrown both in law and in fact. For instance, in music songwriters whose material is used by the two surviving mega-majors normally must kick back a part of their writers' royalty to the publisher (a subsidiary of the entertainment conglomerate). Musical groups negotiating with these conglomerates must pick a lawyer from a list provided -- all memebers of which are loyal to the conglomerate, not to the de-jure client.

It's amusing in a way. The entertainment conglomerates make crap and treat the creators like crap, and then bemoan their crappy results, and go complain to Washington for more special privileges. Just say no to TV and popular music -- cut off these creeps' air supply.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

PS: you can probably go out in the nearest small city and listen live to better entertainers that will come to the stadiums this summer, in any genre you like. There is a LOT of talent out there.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

"Antiquated" was the wrong word, I agree. "Transmogrified" might have been better. The original intent of copyright was good, to allow the creator to benefit financially from her/his creation during his/her lifetime. Copyright transmogrified is a disgrace, meant to allow corporations to harvest money from other people's work in perpetuity, people like Ted Turner who owns the copyrights on ten million old films that he had nothing to do with creating.