So what does this mean?

Copyright laws are stated in the United States Constitution, and they “give congress the power to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and investors the exclusive rights to their respective writings and discoveries.” (244) The original intent of copyright laws was to give artists and creators a limited amount of time to profit from their work before they entered the public domain for general use by everyone. It could be argued that seventy years beyond the life of the author is plenty of time for the creator to have copyright of the work and that the current copyright laws actually stifle the creation of new works.