[pjc50]

> the U.S said hey long copyright does not help support the promotion of science and the arts etc

The US has been a big driver of extending copyright terms on behalf of US media corporations such as Disney. It became very apparent that whenever Mickey Mouse would come out of copyright, Disney would get a change in the law.

Most recently when it was about to expire this didn't happen, possibly as a result of the spat between Disney and Florida Republicans.

[bryanrasmussen]

I agree my hypothetical is a long shot, but it is mainly just to illustrate that even if the U.S took this hypothetical road and decided to argue for cutting copyright back to something like 20 years that people on HN often seem to think is the way to go, it is unlikely that European countries would find that acceptable - which means that probably it would get dropped because it would be a pretty big issue if in Europe it was 70 years and in US it was 20.