Indefinitely Renewable Copyright

In this Article we raise questions concerning the widely accepted proposition that economic efficiency requires that copyright protection should be limited in its duration The Constitution authorizes Congress to create copyright and patent protection limited Times. The first federal copyright act was enacted in 1790 and provided for an initial term of fourteen years plus a renewal term of the same length, provided the author was still living at the end of the initial term. The initial term was lengthened to twenty-eight years in 1831, and the renewal term to twenty-eight years in 1909, to fortyseven years beginning in 1962, and to sixty-seven years beginning in