Why isn't Batman in the public domain?

Copyright is a creature of statute, so Congress–through legislation–establishes the rules, subject only to constitutional constraints. When Congress increased the term from 56 years to life-plus-50 years in 1978, it argued that this would allow the U.S. to join the Berne Convention–-the major international treaty on copyright.

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But why did Congress increase the term again just 20 years later?

It had nothing to do with current or aspiring authors (had that been the case we would have given the extended term only to new works). Instead, corporate owners of valuable copyrights, such as Disney’s interest in Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh, and descendants of authors, like the Gershwin Family Trust, saw the imminent possibility that some of their royalty stream would dry up. They could afford to lobby heavily and they did, successfully keeping the congressional proceedings under the radar until the legislation passed.

This is far from a zero sum game: The general public lost vastly more than the special interests gained. But the politics are such that concentrated interests have the lobbying power.

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