Retroactive copyright extensions are changing the deal after it has been made, for the benefit of copyright holders and to the detriment of the public. This is unethical.
That's why I get angry when copyright holders try to make ethical arguments against piracy.
> One of the foundations of law that you cannot make retroactive changes.
This is a common misconception, at least regarding laws in the US. While I may not agree with it, the US Supreme Court has for literally centuries (like since 1798) explicitly allowed all types of retroactive laws. Most importantly, the USSC has long held the prohibition against ex post facto laws only applies to criminal, not civil laws. (As an aside, this also shows what bullshit it is when justices say they are just "calling balls and strikes". Justices, of all political stripes, make up laws all the time. The Constitution, as written, very clearly and plainly says "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed." At some point - Calder v. Bull in 1798 to be exact - the Supreme Court decided it only applies to criminal law.)
Money fuels politics (especially in the USA) and the media companies had money to spend. The average joe didn't care, so it was a perfect storm. That's less so nowadays, but mostly because even the companies are finding it hard to get bipartisan support for these kinds of things anymore.
In Mexico you cannot have that, as the constitution says that no right that you had can be taken from you retroactively.
The problem is the Mexico is the most strict country (by law) in copyright terms, which is dead of last author plus 150 years and there is no fair use.
You have a deal with a copyright holder? Have you considered taking them to court over it? I'd donate to help get you what their contract owes you, and I'm sure others would, too.
You only have a very weak negotiating power and only during the election campaign while copyright holders have very, very strong negotiation power (money) all the time. So they can change the law whenever and however they want to. Your "contract" with the lawmakers can change at any time regardless of your (or the majority's) wishes, which on the face of it is extremely undemocratic. So the "take them to court" strategy is doomed to fail but people are still correct to point out how unethical and immoral this is.
In the same vein, piracy may be illegal but sometimes it just balances out this immorality and lack of ethics of copyright holders and lawmakers. If we follow the same reasoning, if a pirate is not taken to court then it wasn't illegal.
This is exactly why "democracy" and "capitalism" are impossible to fully exist side by side. Capitalism rules necessarily destroy democracy because its basis is the accumulation of money and power by a few. On the other hand, perfect democracy will give people the power to remove the money privilege of the few through taxes and policies (the founding founders already knew this). The idea that we have democracy in a capitalist system is the peak of stupidity, because people are deceiving themselves about being free, when in fact they're just doing the bidding of the super rich.
So capitalism in practice compared to a perfect democracy where the powerful few handle their power without becoming corrupt? Well obviously the theoretical system wins here, but it sidesteps the biggest problem that people do not handle power well.
Is that true? One's options are limited if all one can do is vote for representatives, instead of directly voting on an issue themselves.
It's helpful to distinguish between the side-effects coming from one's vote and the intention/motivation for that vote. (This is called the doctrine of double effect.)
I would be surprised if many poor people vote with the intention of giving tax cuts for rich people, instead of voting for a candidate who they feel resonates them for other reasons, where it is an incidental fact that this candidate will push tax cuts for rich people.
The electoral college determines who becomes president and the president has the overt power to veto bills and the more subtle ability to influence the government's agenda.
The number of electoral votes a state has is also equal to the number of representatives that they send to congress. So the unbalanced distribution of electors also reflects an unbalanced distribution of representatives.
President can veto laws. President has the bully pulpit and gets things on and off the agenda. Twice in my lifetime has the candidate who won the popular vote lost the presidency, with massive ramifications for the country I live in.
I'm not endorsing GP's point, but the electoral college is massively important to legislation.
> Twice in my lifetime has the candidate who won the popular vote lost the presidency, with massive ramifications for the country I live in.
I see this repeated often, and I need to say it's bullshit.
The rules of presidential elections are known to the general public, which affects voters behavior, i.e. Republican voters in California might not even bother voting, since they stand no chance of affecting the results. Similar thing can be said about Democrats in Florida. There are even names for this: "blue states", "red states", "swing states".
Until you actually hold the elections with different rules the claim of "winning the popular vote" is meaningless.
EDIT: to clarify - the current system means that some votes matter more than others: a single Republican vote in a swing state matters more than a single Republican vote in blue state. People behave accordingly, i.e. voter turnout is higher in swing states.
I believe op is referring to the deal between the copyright holder and the public - the public grants exclusive use of the content to encourage creativity, in exchange, the work will eventually become public. In extending the duration a work is protected, the deal is being modified.
I'm interested in how this would work in New Zealand. Could I publish a version of The Hobbit on amazon.co.nz? Would this be perfectly legal? If I instead published it on my own New Zealand based blog, maybe even hosted on a data center in NZ, but with no attempt to geo-fence it would that cause issues?
That is indeed an interesting question. Presumably if you reimagined those things, without reference to the imagery in the movies, that would be completely legitimate right?
Countries that block pirate sites, like the UK, could block your site. They might also put political pressure on New Zealand to force you to manage the geofencing yourself.
If you just post it to a NZ Gutenberg branch I doubt anyone would come for you. The Canadian Gutenberg project has lots of stuff that is only public ___domain there, and in places like NZ. It is not geofenced.
I mean - it's the whole point isn't it? To allow things to become part of the public consciousness. To borrow from that and extend upon it, to embellished and exaggerate it. Seems fine to me.
Presumably you can't then sell that into countries where the inspiration isn't yet public ___domain?
Would have entered into the public ___domain in Canada had the government not signed a last-minute 20 year copyright extension act last year.