"Respect Copyright" disrespects me

This New York Times article about the MPAA's copyright indoctrination campaign reminded me that I never got a response from the Respect Copyrights people to this July 22 query to Respect Copyrights:

Dear RespectCopyrights.org,

Thank you for the encouragement to contact your organization if I had any further questions about copyright. I do have one. I couldn't tell from your site...

What was the copyright term when the United States was founded, and what is it now?

Please let me know.

Thanks,
Brian Flemming

It's interesting that a site devoted to copyright education does not address the history of U.S. copyright law.

Oops. I stand corrected. Further investigation reveals a relevant link to the official MPAA site. But according to this MPAA summary linked from respectcopyrights.org as a "Short History of Copyright," the history of copyright began in 1976.

Damn lazy historians.

(UPDATE: I should probably answer for those who don't know, the original copyright term way back when was 14 years, renewable once. What is it now? Author's life plus 70 years, or 95 years in the case of a corporation--although the stated intention of media companies is to lobby Congress to keep increasing the term into perpetuity--a strategy that is working gangbusters so far. The MPAA would prefer it very very much if you would not start thinking about why the 14-years-renewable-once thing might make a tad more sense than perpetual copyright, considering the original purpose of copyright. And, yes, I did just link to National Review Online. If ever there were a nonpartisan issue, this is one.)