Never Trust Anyone Over Thirty

How about trusting those who are exactly thirty? Well, I think it pretty obvious that the Creative Commons folk already don't trust a statute that turns thirty in a couple of weeks: The Copyright Act of 1976, which came into effect on 01 January 1978.

Maybe it's about time for the publishing industry to start trusting the statute. It's only been thirty years, so there's no longer any need for the term of the contract to refer to a "renewal term." Neither is there any need for all of those terms that try to treat the copyright as a unitary right, rather than a collection of rights. And so on.

There's another thirtieth anniversary coming up this year: the Bankruptcy Code. The publishing industry has its problems with complying with it, too.

So here's to a pair of thirty-year-olds.