zlacker

The copyright system is what has enabled so few companies (and one giant corporation in particular) to become the owners, controllers, and beneficiaries of the vast majority of American fiction and culture. From visual media companies, record companies, and publishers, you can probably distill ownership of more than 90% of the culture that the average American lives in to fewer than 20 companies.

Copyright has been the most powerful tool in any media company's toolbox when it comes to consolidating power and IP and rolling into a larger and larger ball of what we call culture.

>>Taywee+(OP)
That IP is sold overseas, so the USA has pushed very very hard to have copyright extended on other countries, presumably because it is a huge financial benefit to the USA (and indirectly to its citizens). Copyright extension is a non-negotiable item in a number of international agreements.

>>roboca+R41
This is really a big problem with copyright - most people don't even get to vote for or against it because whatever "democratic" laws there are are only formalizing trade agreements that would be too costly to violate that doing so is not even up for discussion.