The European Union has copyright on furniture -- and has just extended the time span of this copyright by 50 years.

It is absurd to copyright furniture shapes, but at least they won't be trying to stop individuals from copying them. That makes the issue much less grave than the War on Sharing that is applied to books, music, etc.

The article uses the confused and confusing term "intellectual property law", which is an obstacle to understanding what copyright law says as well as to thinking about what it ought to do.