Paul Eberhardt on Copyright Term

Mr. Olson's commentary [Theodore B. Olson, in a March 23 commentary, "Thou Shalt Not Steal,"] is incomplete....

The Framers of our Constitution gave Congress the power to grant copyrights "for a limited time," a phrase that wasn't in your article. For at least a century, that limited time was, at most, 28 years. That limited time for most films is now 95 years. In fact, no commercially significant copyright has been allowed to expire in the U.S. since about 1950....

Paul Eberhardt
Portland, Ore.

Excerpted from WSJ: Innovation and Intellectual-Property Rights, April 1, 2005; Page A11]

Related: Can Justice Scalia Solve the Riddles Of the Internet? [note: almost as good as the NYT op-ed on this subject ;>]