Comment by quanticle
10 years ago
This story, in a nutshell, shows why it's ludicrous to have a 70-year copyright term. There are large swaths of our culture that are going to be locked away for decades precisely because everybody, corporations and individuals alike, are bad at keeping records for longer than a decade or so.
If we'd had a more reasonable copyright system, No One Lives Forever would have been public domain by now, and anyone would have been free to update it, re-release it, use its assets for other projects, etc. Instead, it's (figuratively) locked away in a warehouse somewhere, like the Holy Grail at the end of Indiana Jones.
That was the Ark of the Covenant.
The Holy Grail was lost because somebody crossed the seal which enhanced their ability to drop important artifacts.
You're right, of course. My only defense is that it's been a long time since I last watched the movies.