by Daniel Brouse
Though copyrights and patents are generally thought to protect the creator from the public, sometimes they may be thought to protect the public from the creator.
A copyright offers protection to literary and musical works. In the United States a copyright’s duration is usually for the life of the author plus 70 years. The laws vary from country to country. Mein Kampf is a book written by Adolf Hitler while he was in prison. When Hitler died, the rights passed to the Bavarian authorities. Some people consider Mein Kampf to be the most dangerous book ever written. The expiration of the copyright is in December 2015. “The Bavarians have used copyright to control republication of Mein Kampf but that control is coming to an end – what happens next? This is still a dangerous book – there are issues with neo-Nazis, and a danger of people misinterpreting it if it’s not put into context,” says John Murphy, whose grandfather translated the first unabridged English language version in 1936.
In the United States, a utility patents’ term is 20 years. Monsanto says, “The first-generation Roundup Ready® soybean trait – the world’s most widely adopted biotech trait, planted by farmers on billions of acres since 1996 — comes off patent in 2015.”