[ribosometronome]

>This creates urgency to change the law (e.g. back to the original 12 year copyright terms)

What was the reasoning for lengthening the terms in the first place? It's not clear to me why works from 1780 would be relatively trivial to modern and thus only merit potentially up to 20-something years of protection while they now may need ... 80ish? I'd assume production of essentially any work would be more of a PITA and riskier in 1780.

[JKCalhoun]

> What was the reasoning for lengthening the terms in the first place?

I've heard Disney and Mickey Mouse cited. But perhaps that's a different issue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act