Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Bring Back the Statute of Anne!

After writing my last post, I went to Lessig's website, where you can download his latest book, Free Culture. I'm enjoying it immensely, and I just came across something I remembered from first year: The earliest copyright in the western legal tradition is the Statute of Anne, passed by the English parliament in 1710. The Statute gave creators a 14-year copyright, with the possibility of a one-time 7 year renewal. Total maximum copyright time: 21 years.

In case you're curious, the current maximum US copyright time: 70 years after the creator's death. So the only stuff in the public domain today is from people who died in 1935.

Ah, the stuff we learn in Communications...

1 comment:

john said...

The mainland uses Mandarin, at least in official documents.

As for translation fidelity, I wouldn't hazard a definite answer, but the sound of the english translation makes me think the CPC is being very deliberate in their choice of wording.

I'll see if I can email a prof of mine and get his opinion.