[Wikimedia-l] Study: Nobody cares about your copyright

[geni]

On 23 May 2012 08:21, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> That is, of course, not the case: the US raises the term then works
> very hard to get its copyright laws "harmonised" internationally. So
> that is actually the reason.

Most of the world was on life+50 or greater before the latest round of
US copyright extensions and before 1989 the US didn't really engage
with international copyright very much.

Of the various common copyright terms Life+70 tends to have more to do
with Germany and the EU than anything else. Life+50 tends to be due to
a mix of laws acquired from various empires (the most useful map when
dealing with copyright is often
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:European_Empires.svg) or the bern
convention. The US might try and get countries to enforce their laws
but the actual terms are more likely to be colonial relics (although
why north korea's copyright law looks so German will remain a mystery)



-- 
geni