About Hollywood and the recording industry, and piracy.

OK. Wired.com points to an article showing Hollywood scare campaigns. "Hollywood: Piracy Fosters Child Porn, Slavery"

What I want to know is - where is Hollywood doing it's part in the Patent/Copyright cycle? The US Government registers and enforces patents and copyrights for the benefit of the public. The intent is to protect a publication or an idea for the author/inventor for a fixed period of time. This is intended to encourage the creation of more ideas and more written works.

So - where are the recordings and documents that have aged out of copyright - and into the public domain?

Who is the slippery slime-type person that wants to prevent the works from benefiting the people and government that established that initial protection time?

I say, if patent holders and copyright holders don't begin, right now, to formally release any and all materials, and stop trying to re-copyright previously copyrighted materials - stop protecting them in the first place.

Take a band. Say, the Beatles. Record a music session, edit into a merchandisable recording form. Duplicate that form.

You could say that each duplicated record, tape, CD, or MP3 or other format track, is a copy of that initial editing of that initial music session. So.. The Beatles recorded their music before 1969. 40 years ago. Who in their right mind thinks that a 34 year copyright didn't expire 6 or more years ago (it was 17 years at the time). Why is any of that material considered copyrighted today?

I would be more concerned about piracy against movies and music companies - if they were honest in turning their older products over to the public as the law intended.