re: #185 opnion

While we are talking about copyright laws , how about drug company patents? If you spend your money & labor and make a break through& get approval you get the patent that you deserve for a finite period.
The problem arises when the pharmaceutical company requests & is granted extension after extension. Nobody else can produce it & the price is set high in a monopolistic way.
Obama could make some positive change by addressing issues like this rather than radically destroying the entire system.

Drug patents were originally no different from any other patent - 20 years protection from time of approval. Problems arose in recent years, because you want to lock down your patent rights as quickly as possible to prevent rivals from benefiting - but the FDA approval process and other procedural delays in bringing your product to market can burn through an enormous chunk of that period of protection, during which you can make no profit at all off your protected asset. So drug patents were extended to take this reality into account. Not sure what the extensions amount to, but they aren’t significantly longer than the 20 years granted to other inventions.