Copyright Extension Goes Into Effect In The UK: More Works Stolen From The Public Domain

Retroactive copyright extension is a unilateral change in that deal -- directly taking the work away from the public domain without any recompense to the public the work has been stolen from.

Scholars have pointed out that there is no legitimate reason to do this, no evidence that it does anything useful at all. Instead, there's plenty of evidence that the cost to the public is tremendous -- somewhere around a billion euros. The cost to culture in general is even worse, because the longer copyright terms are, the more works disappear entirely, and the more it harms the dissemination of knowledge. It's basically a disaster all the way around -- except for some old record labels that still have the copyrights.