Sigh. Scott, do you know who Eric Eldred is? Do you have any idea of just _why_ he (among others) is challenging the Sonny Bono Act? I'll give you a hint: It's not to "pump out t-shirts" with Mickey Mouse on them. (In fact, it doesn't have anything to do with Disney at all, Disney is just the company that financed the Bono Act.) Disney has built on the works of the past. Cinderella, Treasure Island, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, on and on and on. All in the public domain, none of which they had to pay a dime in royalties for. And yet, if things continue the way they are, no one will _ever_ be able to build on _Disney's_ work. That's the point. While your heirs are celebrating the millions they've made from your work, what happens to the work of those without heirs? Or whose work isn't so popular? The work isn't in the public domain, it's covered by copyright. So if I want to publish it, I have to track down heirs in order to get the right to do so. Let's see, I don't expect to make much on this work (since it wasn't very popular when it was new) and it'll cost thousands to track the heirs down, cuts into my thin profit margin, forget it, I'll publish something else. That work gets forgotten, and, worse, someone who might have read it never goes on to redo it in a way that is unique and wonderful, that would have made him millions and that would have added something very much worthwhile to humanity. So you would really like to destroy the public domain so that a few can profit from their ancestor's work? The LA Times had an article about this issue several weeks ago. It went into the origin of copyright and the Stationers' monopoly before 1710. Then: When the U.S. Constitution was drawn up several years later, this history was still fresh. Jefferson wanted to put a "restriction against monopolies" in the Bill of Rights, right alongside trial by jury and freedom of the press. He, like the other framers, hated concentrating power in the hands of a few, and didn't like the idea of the past calling the shots on the future either. The earth belongs to the living, Jefferson wrote Madison on Sept. 6, 1789: "The dead have neither powers nor rights over it." Personally, I'm with Jefferson on this one. Heirs be damned, they can make their _own_ millions. Have you ever considered the logical end result of your position, Scott? -- Frank Mayhar frank at exit.com http://www.exit.com/ Exit Consulting http://www.gpsclock.com/