Be glad it's theater & not something with more teeth because we know the right controls far too many things today to keep unreasonable laws from actually being enforced.
Fair enough - I'm aware it's not. I was still thinking of the American release since this is the first one officially supported in the USA, and I had just read another article focused upon that a couple days ago - which probably primed me for staying in that mindset. Apologies for being tunnel-visioned. I'm just very frustrated since I'd like to get one, but can't use it under these limitations.
Hope you use T-Mobile because that's the only carrier getting full support. AT&T has only native support, while its MVNOs are shown as "partial" (a.k.a. "pot luck" with regard to which capabilities are supported). Verizon is a total no-go.
No Verizon support makes it incompatible with my absolutely essential truly unlimited data via their Visible subsidiary. My job takes me away from home far too much to go without it.
Well, that's why I left them open - on the off chance I suddenly find myself with the amount of time I used to have in my younger days. But, of course, now that my phone's crashed... sigh
So the original Star Trek series would've been public domain by the time the first movie was released? I don't think that's reasonable.
Competitors could have created their own Star Trek films and released them at the same time & really muddied things, preventing TNG from ever happening. I think it's reasonable that a creator be able to control their creation's direction for a good while until it's firmly established as being what they wanted it to be. Creative work takes time, and so more time than you suggest seems only fair to me.
United States copyright law traces its lineage back to the British Statute of Anne, which influenced the first U.S. federal copyright law, the Copyright Act of 1790. The length of copyright established by the Founding Fathers was 14 years with an option to renew it once for 14 more.
After a quarter century, if it's still relevant, then it's part of community culture and everybody should be able to have access to it.
I was down with the post title, but then I saw your chosen example. Not a strong choice, IMHO.