I was listening to the radio this morning and heard Lewis and Floorwax conjecturing that Michael Jackson was on track to make more money after his death than even Elvis Presley. Stores are already reporting that the run on MJ’s music is surpassing that of both Lennon and Elvis upon their deaths.

Am I the only person that thinks that this kind of profit after the death of the person responsible for it is completely asinine? Really… in the United States Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, also known as the Copyright Clause, the United States Congress is given the ability “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”

Now, I don’t have a degree in law, and from what I can tell, “common sense” has no place in law, only previous case precedent. But this seems like a very specifically worded section of our primary legal document that seems completely at odds with people and heirs profiting after the death of the performer, because I can’t figure ANY way in which that promotes “the Progress of Science and useful Arts”.

Screw Sonny Bono and the rest of Congress. They enact(ed) laws covering principles they are too stupid to comprehend, yet they think they’re able to because of lobbyist pandering. It’s the worst kind of incompetence… being Unskilled and Unaware of It. Beware, that’s a PDF link… an HTML overview of the PDF is here.

Monday, July 6th, 2009 @ 8:27 pm Law, Politics
RSS 2.0 Trackback