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

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.