The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act – also known as the Copyright Term Extension Act,
Sonny Bono Act, or (derisively) the
Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse is an animated cartoon Character (arts), character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The longtime mascot of The Walt Disney Company, Mickey is an Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic mouse who typically wears red sho ...
Protection Act – extended
copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...
terms in the
United States in 1998. It is one of several acts extending the terms of copyrights.
Following the
Copyright Act of 1976
The Copyright Act of 1976 is a United States copyright law and remains the primary basis of copyright law in the United States, as amended by several later enacted copyright provisions. The Act spells out the basic rights of copyright holders, cod ...
,
copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...
would last for the life of the author plus 50 years (or the last surviving author), or 75 years from publication or 100 years from creation, whichever is shorter for a work of
corporate authorship
A work made for hire (work for hire or WFH), in copyright law in the United States, is a work that is subject to copyright and is created by employees as part of their job or some limited types of works for which all parties agree in writing to the ...
(
works made for hire) and anonymous and pseudonymous works. The 1976 Act also increased the renewal term for works copyrighted before 1978 that had not already entered the public domain from 28 years to 47 years, giving a total term of 75 years.
The 1998 Act extended these terms to life of the author plus 70 years and for works of corporate authorship to 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever end is earlier. For works published before January 1, 1978, the 1998 act extended the renewal term from 47 years to 67 years, granting a total of 95 years.
This law effectively "froze" the advancement date of the
public domain in the United States for works covered by the older fixed term copyright rules. Under this Act, works made in 1923 or afterwards that were still protected by copyright in 1998 would not enter the public domain until January 1, 2019, or later. Mickey Mouse specifically, having first appeared in 1928 in ''
Steamboat Willie'', will enter the public domain in 2024 or afterward (depending on the date of the product). Unlike
copyright extension legislation in the European Union, the Sonny Bono Act did not revive copyrights that had already expired, and therefore is not retroactive in that sense. The Act did extend the terms of protection set for works that were already copyrighted and were created before it took effect, so it is retroactive in that sense. However, works created before January 1, 1978, but not published or registered for copyright until recently, are addressed in a special section () and may remain protected until the end of 2047. The Act became on October 27, 1998.
Background
Under the international
of 1886, the signatory countries are required to provide copyright protection for a minimum term of the life of the author plus fifty years. Additionally, they are permitted to provide for a longer term of protection. The Berne Convention did not come into force for the
United States until it was ratified on March 1, 1989, but the U.S. had previously provided for the minimum copyright term the convention required in the
Copyright Act of 1976
The Copyright Act of 1976 is a United States copyright law and remains the primary basis of copyright law in the United States, as amended by several later enacted copyright provisions. The Act spells out the basic rights of copyright holders, cod ...
.
After the United States' accession to the Berne convention, a number of copyright owners successfully
lobbied the
U.S. Congress for another extension of the term of copyright, to provide for the same term of protection that exists in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...
. Since the 1993
Directive on harmonising the term of copyright protection, member states of the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been ...
implemented protection for a term of the author's life plus seventy years.
The act was named in memory of the late Congressman
Sonny Bono, who died nine months before the act became law: he had previously been one of twelve sponsors of a similar bill.
House members sympathetic to restaurant and bar owners, who were upset over
ASCAP
The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadca ...
and
BMI licensing practices, almost derailed the Act. As a result, the bill was amended to include the
Fairness in Music Licensing Act, which exempted smaller establishments from needing a public performance license to play music.
Both houses of the United States Congress passed the act as Public Law 105-298 with a
voice vote. President
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton (Birth name, né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 ...
signed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 on October 27, 1998.
As a result of the 1976 and 1998 extensions, a small number of
renewed works, within a span of 40 years, entered public domain:
From 2019 onwards, works published in one year, will enter public domain at the end of the 95th calendar year of publication. For example, works published in entered public domain on .
Political climate
Senate Report 104-315
The Senate Report gave the official reasons for passing copyright extension laws and was originally written in the context of the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1995.
The authors of the report believed that extending copyright protection would help the United States by providing more protection for their works in foreign countries and by giving more incentive to digitize and preserve works since there was an exclusive right in them. The report also included minority opinions by
Herb Kohl and
Hank Brown, who believed that the term extensions were a financial windfall to current owners of copyrighted material at the expense of the public's use of the material.
Support
Since 1990,
The Walt Disney Company had lobbied for copyright extension. The legislation delayed the entry into the public domain of the earliest
Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse is an animated cartoon Character (arts), character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The longtime mascot of The Walt Disney Company, Mickey is an Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic mouse who typically wears red sho ...
movies, leading detractors to the nickname "The Mickey Mouse Protection Act".
In addition to Disney, California congresswoman
Mary Bono (Sonny Bono's widow and Congressional successor), and the estate of composer
George Gershwin supported the act. Mary Bono, speaking on the floor of the
United States House of Representatives, said:
Other parties that lobbied in favor of the Bono Act were
Time Warner,
Universal,
Viacom, the major professional sports leagues (
NFL
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...
,
NBA
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...
,
NHL
The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...
,
MLB), and the family of slain singer
Selena Quintanilla-Pérez.
Proponents of the Bono Act argue that it is necessary given that the
life expectancy of humans has risen dramatically since Congress passed the original
Copyright Act of 1790,
that a difference in copyright terms between the United States and Europe would negatively affect the international operations of the
entertainment industry
Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and Interest (emotion), interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have dev ...
,
and that some works would be created under a longer copyright that would never be created under the existing copyright. They also claim that copyrighted works are an important source of income to the US
and that media such as
VHS,
DVD,
cable and
satellite have increased the value and commercial life of movies and television series.
Proponents contend that Congress has the power to pass whatever copyright term it wants because the language "To promote the progress of science and useful arts" in the United States Constitution is not a substantive limitation on the powers of Congress, leaving the sole restriction that copyrights must only last for "limited times." However, in what respect the granted time must be limited has never been determined, thus arguably even an absurdly long, yet finite, duration would still be a valid ''limited time'' according to the letter of the Constitution as long as Congress was ostensibly setting this limit to promote the progress of science and useful arts. This was one of the arguments that prevailed in the ''
Eldred v. Ashcroft
''Eldred v. Ashcroft'', 537 U.S. 186 (2003), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States upholding the constitutionality of the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA). The practical result of this was to prevent a number ...
'' case, when the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the CTEA. It is also pointed out by proponents that the extension did not prevent all works from going in the public domain. They note that the 1976 Copyright Act established that
unpublished works created before 1978 would still begin entering the public domain January 1, 2003 (Known author: life of the author plus 70 years; anonymous/pseudoanonymous/unknown author/works-for-hire: 120 years from creation), and that the provision remained unaffected by the 1998 extension.
They also claim that Congress has actually increased the scope of the public domain since, for the first time, unpublished works will enter the public domain.
Proponents believe that copyright encourages progress in the arts. With an extension of copyright, future artists have to create something original, rather than reuse old work, however, had the act been in place in the 1960s, it is unlikely that
Andy Warhol would have been able to sell or even exhibit any of his work, since it all incorporated previously copyrighted material. Proponents contend that it is more important to encourage all creators to make new works instead of just copyright holders.
Proponents say that copyright better preserves intellectual property like movies, music and television shows.
One example given is the case of the classic film ''
It's a Wonderful Life''.
Before
Republic Pictures
Republic Pictures Corporation (currently held under Melange Pictures, LLC) was an American motion picture production-distribution corporation in operation from 1935 to 1967, that was based in Los Angeles. It had studio facilities in Studio City an ...
and
Spelling Entertainment (who owned the motion picture rights to the short story and the music even after the film itself became public domain) began to assert their rights to the film, various local TV stations and cable networks broadcast the film endlessly. As ''
New York Times'' reporter Bill Carter put it: "the film's currency was being devalued."
Many different versions of the film were made and most if not all were in horrible condition. After underlying rights to the film were enforced, it was given a high quality restoration that was hailed by critics. In addition, proponents note that once a work falls into the public domain there is no guarantee that the work will be more widely available or cheaper. Suggesting that quality copies of public domain works are not widely available, they argue that one reason for a lack of availability may be due to publishers' reluctance to publish a work that is in the public domain for fear that they will not be able to recoup their investment or earn enough profit.
Proponents reject the idea that only works in the public domain can provide artistic inspiration. They note that opponents fail to take into account that copyright applies only to expressions of ideas and not the ideas themselves.
Thus artists are free to get ideas from copyrighted works as long as they do not
infringe. Borrowing ideas and such are common in film, TV and music even with copyrighted works (see ''
scènes à faire'',
idea-expression divide and
stock character
A stock character, also known as a character archetype, is a fictional character in a work of art such as a novel, play, or a film whom audiences recognize from frequent recurrences in a particular literary tradition. There is a wide range of st ...
). Works such as
parody benefit from
fair use.
Proponents also question the idea that extended copyright is "corporate welfare." They state that many opponents also have a stake in the case, claiming that those arguing against copyright term extension are mostly businesses that depend on distributing films and videos that have lost their copyright.
One argument against the CTEA is focused on the
First Amendment. In ''
Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises'', however, the court explained how a copyright "respects and adequately safeguards the
freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recogni ...
protected by the First Amendment."
In following this approach, courts have held that copyrights are "categorically immune from challenges under the First Amendment."
Opposition
Critics of the CTEA argue that it was never the original intention for copyright protection to be extended in the United States. Attorney Jenny L. Dixon mentions that "the United States has always viewed copyright primarily as a vehicle for achieving social benefit based on the belief that encouragement of individual effort by personal gain is the best way to advance the public welfare;"
however, "the U.S. does not consider copyright as a 'natural right.'"
Dixon continues that with increased extensions on copyright protections, authors receive the benefits, while the public have more difficulty accessing these works, weakening public domain.
One such extension Dixon mentions is the protection of a copyrighted work for the author's life followed by two generations, which opponents argue that there is no legislation nor intention for this copyright protection.
"These constitutionally-grounded arguments 'for limitations on proprietary rights' are being rejected time and time again."
Dennis S. Karjala, a law professor, led an effort to try to prevent the CTEA from being passed. He testified before the Committees on the Judiciary arguing "that extending the term of copyright protection would impose substantial costs on the United States general public without supplying any public benefit. The extension bills represent a fundamental departure from the United States philosophy that intellectual property legislation serve a public purpose."
An editorial in ''
The New York Times'' argued against the copyright extension on February 21, 1998. The article stated "When Senator Hatch laments that
George Gershwin's ''
Rhapsody in Blue'' will soon 'fall into the public domain,' he makes the public domain sound like a dark abyss where songs go, never to be heard again. In fact, when a work enters the public domain it means the public can afford to use it freely, to give it new currency."
Opponents of the ''Bono Act'' consider the legislation to be
corporate welfare and have tried (but failed) to have it declared
unconstitutional in the process
Eldred v. Ashcroft
''Eldred v. Ashcroft'', 537 U.S. 186 (2003), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States upholding the constitutionality of the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA). The practical result of this was to prevent a number ...
, claiming that such an act is not "necessary and proper" to accomplishing the Constitution's stated purpose of "promot
ngthe progress of science and useful arts".
They argue that most works bring most of the profits during the first few years and are pushed off the market by the publishers thereafter. Thus there is little economic incentive in extending the terms of copyrights except for the few owners of franchises that are wildly successful, such as Disney. They also point out that the
Tenth Amendment
The Tenth Amendment (Amendment X) to the United States Constitution, a part of the Bill of Rights, was ratified on December 15, 1791. It expresses the principle of federalism, also known as states' rights, by stating that the federal governmen ...
can be construed as placing limits on the powers that Congress can gain from a treaty. More directly, they see two successive terms of approximately 20 years each (the
Copyright Act of 1976
The Copyright Act of 1976 is a United States copyright law and remains the primary basis of copyright law in the United States, as amended by several later enacted copyright provisions. The Act spells out the basic rights of copyright holders, cod ...
and the Bono Act) as the beginning of a "slippery slope" toward a
perpetual copyright
Perpetual copyright can refer to a copyright without a finite term, or to a copyright whose finite term is perpetually extended. Perpetual copyright in the former sense is highly uncommon, as the current laws of all countries with copyright stat ...
term that nullifies the intended effect and violates the spirit of the "for limited times" language of the
United States Constitution, Article I, section 8, clause 8.
Some opponents have questioned the proponents' life expectancy argument, making the comparison between the growth of copyright terms and the term of patents in relation to the growth of life expectancies. Life expectancies have risen from about 35 years in 1800
to 77.6 years in 2002.
While copyright terms have increased threefold, from only 28 years total (under the
Copyright Act of 1790), life expectancies have roughly doubled. Moreover, life expectancy statistics are skewed due to historically high infant mortality rates. Correcting for infant mortality, life expectancy has only increased by fifteen years between 1850 and 2000.
In addition, copyright terms have increased significantly since the 1790 act, but
patent terms have not been extended in parallel, with 20-year terms of protection remaining the (presumably under the laws) adequate compensation for innovation in a technical field.
Seventeen prominent economists and
libertarians, including
Nobel Prize laureates (
George Akerlof,
Kenneth Arrow,
James Buchanan
James Buchanan Jr. ( ; April 23, 1791June 1, 1868) was an American lawyer, diplomat and politician who served as the 15th president of the United States from 1857 to 1861. He previously served as secretary of state from 1845 to 1849 and repr ...
,
Ronald Coase, and
Milton Friedman), submitted an
amicus brief opposing the bill when it was challenged in court. They argued that the
discounted present value of the extension was only a 1% increase for newly created works, while the increase in
transaction costs created by extending the terms of old works would be very large and without any
marginal benefit. According to
Lawrence Lessig, when asked to sign the brief, Friedman had originally insisted that it include "the word 'no-brainer' in it somewhere," but still agreed to sign it even though his condition was not met.
Another argument against the CTEA is focused on the
First Amendment "because of the prospective and retrospective application of the CTEA."
The plaintiffs in ''
Eldred v. Reno'' believed that "the CTEA failed to sustain the intermediate level of scrutiny test afforded by the First Amendment because the government did not have an 'important' interest to justify withholding speech."
Opponents also argue that the Act encourages "offshore production." For example, derivative works could be created outside the United States in areas where copyright would have expired, and that US law would prohibit these works to US residents. For example, a movie of Mickey Mouse playing with a computer could be legally created in Russia, but the movie would be refused admission for importation by US Customs because of copyright, resulting in a deprivation to American children. Similarly, the first
Winnie-the-Pooh book was published in 1926 and would have been public domain in 2001.
Opponents identify another possible harm from copyright extension: loss of productive value of private collections of copyrighted works. A person who collected copyrighted works that would soon "go out of copyright," intending to re-release them on copyright expiration, lost the use of his capital expenditures for an additional 20 years when the Bono Act passed. This is part of the underlying argument in ''
Eldred v. Ashcroft
''Eldred v. Ashcroft'', 537 U.S. 186 (2003), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States upholding the constitutionality of the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA). The practical result of this was to prevent a number ...
''. The Bono Act is thus perceived to add an instability to commerce and investment, areas which have a better legal theoretical basis than intellectual property, whose theory is of quite recent development and is often criticized as being a corporate chimera. Conceivably, if one had made such an investment and then produced a derivative work (or perhaps even re-released the work ''in ipse''), he could counter a suit made by the copyright holder by declaring that Congress had unconstitutionally made,
ex post facto, a restriction on the previously unrestricted.
Howard Besser questioned the proponents' argument that "new works would not be created", which implies that the goal of copyright is to make the creation of new works possible. However, the Framers of the United States Constitution evidently thought that unnecessary, instead restricting the goal of copyright to merely "promot
ngthe progress of science and useful arts". In fact, some works created under time-limited copyright would not be created under perpetual copyright because the creator of a distantly derivative work does not have the money and resources to find the owner of copyright in the original work and purchase a license, or the individual or privately held owner of copyright in the original work might refuse to license a use at any price (though a refusal to license may trigger a fair use safety valve). Thus they argue that a rich, continually replenished, public domain is necessary for continued artistic creation.
[ Howard Besser]
''The Erosion of Public Protection: Attacks on the concept of Fair Use''
, Paper delivered at the Town Meeting on Copyright & Fair Use, College Art Association, Toronto, February 1998. Retrieved 2010-07-27.
March 25, 1998, House Debate
The House debated the Copyright Term Extension Act (House Resolution 390) on March 25, 1998. The term extension was almost completely supported, with only the mild criticism by
Jim Sensenbrenner
Frank James Sensenbrenner Jr. (; born June 14, 1943) is an American politician who represented in the United States House of Representatives from 1979 to 2021 (numbered as the 9th district until 2003). He is a member of the Republican Party.
...
(Wisconsin) of "H.R. 2589 provides a very generous windfall to the entertainment industry by extending the term of copyright for an additional 20 years." He suggested that it could be balanced by adding provisions from the
Fairness in Music Licensing Act (H.R. 789).
Lloyd Doggett (Texas) called the 'Fairness in Music Licensing Act' the 'Music Theft Act' and claimed that it was a mechanism to "steal the intellectual property of thousands of small businesspeople who are song writers in this land." The majority of subsequent debate was over Sensenbrenner's House Amendment 532 to the CTEA. This amendment was over details of allowing music from radio and television broadcasts in small businesses to be played without licensing fees. An amendment to Sensenbrenner's amendment was proposed by
Bill McCollum. The key differences between Sensenbrenner's proposal and McCollum's amendment were 1) local arbitration versus court lawsuits in rate disagreements, 2) all retail businesses versus only restaurants and bars, 3) 3500 square feet of general public area versus of gross area, 4) which music licensing societies it applied to (all versus ASCAP and BMI), and 5) freedom from vicarious liability for landlords and others leasing space versus no such provision. After debate (and the first verse of American Pie) the McCollum Amendment was rejected by a vote of 259 to 150 and the Sensenbrenner amendment was passed by 297 to 112. The Copyright Term Extension Act H.R. 2589 was passed.
The term extension was supported for two key reasons. First, "copyright industries give us
the United States)one of our most significant trade surpluses." Second, the recently enacted legislation in the European Union had extended copyright there for 20 years, and so EU works would be protected for 20 years longer than US works if the US did not enact similar term extensions.
Howard Coble also stated that it was good for consumers since "When works are protected by copyright, they attract investors who can exploit the work for profit." The term extension portion was supported by
Songwriters Guild of America The Songwriters Guild of America (SGA) is an organization founded in 1931, to help "advance, promote, and benefit" the profession of songwriters. It was founded as the Songwriters Protective Association by Billy Rose, George W. Meyer and Edgar Les ...
,
National Academy of Songwriters National Academy of Songwriters was a music industry association that provided a support network for songwriters, and awarded honors in various categories. Originally founded by Helen King as Songwriters Resources and Services, she saw a need to pro ...
, the
Motion Picture Association of America, the Intellectual Property Law Section of the American Bar Association, the
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...
,
National Music Publishers Association, the
Information Technology Association of America
The Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), formerly the Association of Data Processing Service Organizations (ADAPSO), was a leading industry trade group for information technology companies. The association's membership contained m ...
and others.
Challenges
Legal
Publishers and librarians, among others, brought a lawsuit, ''
Eldred v. Ashcroft
''Eldred v. Ashcroft'', 537 U.S. 186 (2003), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States upholding the constitutionality of the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA). The practical result of this was to prevent a number ...
'', to obtain an injunction on enforcement of the act. Oral arguments were heard by the
U.S. Supreme Court on October 9, 2002. On January 15, 2003, the court held the CTEA constitutional by a 7–2 decision.
In 2003, the plaintiffs in the ''Eldred'' case began to shift their effort toward the U.S. Congress in support of a bill called the
Public Domain Enhancement Act that would make the provisions of the Bono Act apply only to copyrights that had been registered with the
Library of Congress.
In May 2022, Senator
Josh Hawley (R-
MO) introduced a bill that would roll back the copyright term for new works to match to the 1909 Copyright Act, but also applies retroactively to works by a group of large companies specifically designed to target Disney.
Sarah Jeong
Sarah Jeong (; born 1988) is an American journalist specializing in information technology law and other technology-related topics. A member of the editorial board of ''The New York Times'' from 2018 to 2019, she was formerly a senior writer f ...
of ''The Verge'' criticized the bill for obviously violating international agreements and the
Fifth Amendment protections against
eminent domain, as an attempt to punish Disney for opposing
Florida House Bill 1557, and because it is unlikely to pass in a Congress where Democrats control both houses.
Empirical testing
In 2012, law professors Christopher Buccafusco and
Paul J. Heald
Paul J. Heald (born April 19, 1959) is an American novelist and law professor, best known for his murder mysteries and his empirical studies of the public domain in copyright law. His fiction is published by Skyhorse Publishing, and he is curre ...
performed tests of three key justifications of copyright extension, namely: that public domain works will be underutilized and less available, will be oversaturated by poor quality copies, and poor quality derivative works will harm the reputation of the original works. They compared works from the two decades surrounding 1923 made available as audiobooks. They found that copyrighted works were significantly less likely to be available than public domain ones, found no evidence of overexploitation driving down the price of works, and that the quality of the audiobook recordings did not significantly affect the price people were willing to pay for the books in print. Heald's later experiment analyzing a random sample of newly posted works on
Amazon.com revealed that public domain works from 1880 were posted at double the rate of copyrighted works from 1980.
See also
*
Anti-copyright
*
Copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...
*
Copyleft
Copyleft is the legal technique of granting certain freedoms over copies of copyrighted works with the requirement that the same rights be preserved in derivative works. In this sense, ''freedoms'' refers to the use of the work for any purpose, ...
*
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
*
Ex post facto law
*
''Free Culture'' (2004 book)
*
Intellectual property
*
List of countries' copyright length
*
Motion Picture Association of America
*
Public domain
*
Rent seeking
*
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...
*
Software copyright
*
United States copyright law
*
European Union 95 year recording copyright extension proposal
References
External links
Summary of copyright protection terms
Cornell Copyright Information Center, "Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States"
Documentation from the United States government
S.505: Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension ActSenate Report No. 104-315Public Law 105-298
Views of proponents
Copyright Extension.comMythology of the public domain: Exploring the myths behind attacks on the duration of copyrightby Scott Martin
Views of opponents
by Lawrence Lessig
* ''
Digital Copyright
''Digital Copyright: Protecting Intellectual Property on the Internet'' is a 2000 book by Jessica Litman detailing the legislative struggles over the passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It was widely reviewed and is generally cited ...
'' by
Jessica Litman
Opposing Copyright Extension
{{authority control
United States federal copyright legislation
Sonny Bono
Copyright term
Acts of the 105th United States Congress
Ex post facto law