• General_Effort
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    1 day ago

    a) The EU extended copyright before the US. It went even further than the US by reviving previously expired copyrights.

    b) The relevant copyrights are expired in most of Europe. They still exist in the NL because of a special exemption granted by lawmakers.

    • MalReynolds@piefed.social
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      1 day ago

      Thanks for the informative. I’m in the ~5 years camp, and the current situation pisses me off. Even if the EU did it of their own accord, plenty of the world had it required for ‘free’ trade agreements.

      • General_Effort
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        1 day ago

        Continental Europe had worse copyright laws since the 19th century. The US founding fathers were enlightenment age idealists, hence the copyright clause. European copyright laws were created by authoritarian empires. It’s a major reason why we can’t do tech. And I suspect also why Europe can’t answer to the dominance of US culture.

        Legal theft like the Mickey-Mouse-Protection-Law is controversial in the US. In the EU, it goes by without comment. That ends up giving casual observers an exactly reverse impression of the legal and social situation. Same for a lot of issues.