I may have misstated which convention it was, but there was international pressure on the US to extend the length of copyright protection. It may have been the WIPO, I would have to look up the file at work. We do follow copyright concerns closely because I work for one of those horrible money grubbing publishers, and we have to pay for using people's writings and artwork all of the time.

One of the distinctions that the current copyright law does make is to separate ideas and facts from the tangible copyrighted materials. What is protected is the individual's expression of an idea or organization of the data. If Mr. Gingrich and his cronies had had their way, all facts would have been granted in perpetuity to the first person to put a fact into an electronic database. (what fun to prove who did it first!) Fortunately, the Senate rejected his ideas after hearing from publishers and librarians, among many others.

Unfortunately, copyright is a business approach to allow the creative artist to make a living on his works, and those who die broke have not had the business sense to make that money themselves. I have 2 good friends that use their artistic talents to make a living. One of them has been hired by various comapnies to be the staff artist. He receives no residuals from his efforts and he sells his original art for virtually nothing or gives it away. The other sells his works and prints of them for enough to have supported his family and continues to be able to make money off of them and protects this with copyright control of his material.

Even in musics, remember Willie Nelson sold his song "Hello Walls" to Ray Price for $100.00. The song has been worth much more than that to Mr. Price.

Earlier in the string someone mentioned what you wish to do with something that you own, under the law you do have rights as first owner as to what you can do with something, as long as it does not compete with the artist's rights. If the artist wants to display his painting that you bought from him, he cannot do so without your consent

If you wish to express more serious concerns, the last round of legislation is not finished with copyright. The Libraian of Congress has been instructed to come up with new guidelines for certain classes of materials. Go to the Library of Congress web site (www.lc.gov) and follow the discussion and make comments to the people making the decisions.

Sorry about getting so carried away with this.