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Copyright ought to expire much much sooner than 70 years or whatever if a work is not available to reasonably (annd legally) obtain anymore. Copyrights are a balance between the public good, and allowing creators to make money from their creations, but as soon as they have obviously abandoned that, then no one is served by such an absurdly long copyright period. I suppose in this case, since it could perhaps be considered a derivative work, where the originals (Star Wars, for instance) are still available for viewing reasonably, it’s more complicated, but nonetheless this feels like a travesty, which benefits no one at all.



If no one can acquire a product legally and the copyright owners do not release (or worse, delete) the product, it seems like this wouldn’t actually change anything in those cases. The best you could hope for is contentious right holders poisoning the well for the other rights holders by releasing a copy.




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