This is mostly a reply on the social contract stuff.
Please remember the reason behind copyright law, it's an necessary evil to 'promote the useful arts and sciences'. Modern economic theory and studies can tell us what the ideal length should be, and they don't all agree but they do tend to suggest an order of magnitude less exclusive control. Some people have also suggested to break up the monolithic block of privilidges we call copyright and give different terms to different rights. eg eternal right to be credited, but only 4 years of being allowed to charge for derivative works, and 5 years to be the only one allowed to sell copies, with extensions that cost a lot for each year, and whose price goes up.
The social contract goes both ways, you surrender some rights for a benefit, in the case a limit on your ability to copy stuff for the benefit of having more artists and enabling them to live of their work. So an artist who is no longer creating new works shouldn't get paid anymore, just like a bridge builder who stops building bridges wouldn't be paid anymore. However it is a balancing act, and at the moment it is way, way out of balance. there is actually an economic theory to explain this and it explains most of the inefficiency in government, basically if everyone has to pay one cent to Joe every year Joe will fight tooth and nail to keep it that way or even raise the amount, and everyone else would rather see it eliminated but they don't get so worked up over it because it's just a single cent. When such a concentrated interest meets such a diffuse one the balance will tend to tip in favor of the concentrated one.
Cultural artifacts should never be under copyright, imagine the mess if the catholic church had copyright on the bible. the protestants would be in deep trouble (in many ways this is one of the big problem with Scientology). The happy birthday song is still under copyright, somehow. The solution to this is again shorter copyright terms, since it takes time for something to become an cultural artifact.
Also it's a myth that without copyright artist wouldn't do art, as exhibit A I give you fanfiction.net. It's a very human drive to make art, without copyright however it would not be distributed in books because it would be too expensive for no gain as another publisher could publish the same material and try to undercut you.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
Please remember the reason behind copyright law, it's an necessary evil to 'promote the useful arts and sciences'. Modern economic theory and studies can tell us what the ideal length should be, and they don't all agree but they do tend to suggest an order of magnitude less exclusive control. Some people have also suggested to break up the monolithic block of privilidges we call copyright and give different terms to different rights. eg eternal right to be credited, but only 4 years of being allowed to charge for derivative works, and 5 years to be the only one allowed to sell copies, with extensions that cost a lot for each year, and whose price goes up.
The social contract goes both ways, you surrender some rights for a benefit, in the case a limit on your ability to copy stuff for the benefit of having more artists and enabling them to live of their work. So an artist who is no longer creating new works shouldn't get paid anymore, just like a bridge builder who stops building bridges wouldn't be paid anymore. However it is a balancing act, and at the moment it is way, way out of balance. there is actually an economic theory to explain this and it explains most of the inefficiency in government, basically if everyone has to pay one cent to Joe every year Joe will fight tooth and nail to keep it that way or even raise the amount, and everyone else would rather see it eliminated but they don't get so worked up over it because it's just a single cent. When such a concentrated interest meets such a diffuse one the balance will tend to tip in favor of the concentrated one.
Cultural artifacts should never be under copyright, imagine the mess if the catholic church had copyright on the bible. the protestants would be in deep trouble (in many ways this is one of the big problem with Scientology). The happy birthday song is still under copyright, somehow. The solution to this is again shorter copyright terms, since it takes time for something to become an cultural artifact.
Also it's a myth that without copyright artist wouldn't do art, as exhibit A I give you fanfiction.net. It's a very human drive to make art, without copyright however it would not be distributed in books because it would be too expensive for no gain as another publisher could publish the same material and try to undercut you.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."