I certainly hope so. I was taught that the constitution had more authority and could trump a law. However, the constitution uses the phrase "limited time," in reference to protecting original works, but the law uses the life of the author plus a standard lifetime on top of that - a little longer than a limited time. I am surprised that the current copyright law has not been found unconstitutional on that ground alone.

What abuses this further is that copyrights often do not belong to the actual creative talent and "REAL" author. For example, if I write a book and in order to get it published the publisher becomes the copyright owner, then the copyright that belongs to the publisher is good for them based on my date of death. Neither I nor my heirs will have access to my works..

I would like to see a public domain forfeiture clause. I would like the non-registration portion to be changed to a grace period after which the copyright owner MUST register to continue owning the copyright. Furthermore, any copyright owner should be required to maintain some sort of availablity to the copyright office so that any work protected by copyright would have an active and current link to the owner. Failure to maintain such a connection should result in a public notice of pending forfeiture and after a year, the copyright should fall into the public domain. I would also love it if the law made transfer of copyright ilegal. That is authors can own the copyright and transfer control of the copyright for a licensed term but there should be term limits and then the control reverts to the author.

Too many song writers and book authors do not own their own creative fruits and many of them have no right to create derivitive works.

Today, many people think that public domain means the original work no longer belongs to anyone. But the opposite is true. Public domain works belong to everybody unilaterally. The new copyright law stole public property away from the general public.