Lets not forget that in recent years the US courts have ...
- ruled that US companies need never worry about their IP rights going public domain. In the past after a set period like 50 or 60 years copyright expired. Disney won a case a few years back in the US that means US companies can keep renewing their rights forever. If that had been law in the past we would still be paying massive royalty to Mozart, Bach and Beethoven's descendants to perform any of their music even now 100's of years later.
- started to grant world wide rights to US companies for extremely basic and simple things. Apple recently were awarded some really stupid ones including apparently patenting the idea that whilst still on a phone call you can click icons to do other stuff on the phone. Seemingly before apple thought up people thought you had to hang up the phone before playing with any other settings or apps.
It actually would not matter so much if other countries such as must of Western Europe and the UK did not bend over backwards to suck up to US corporate bullying and exploitation.
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