Supreme Court Accepts Eldred Case

Patrick Fitzgerald writes: "The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to intervene in a fight over copyrights, deciding whether Congress has sided too heavily with writers and other inventors. The outcome will determine when hundreds of thousands of books, songs and movies will be freely available on the Internet or in digital libraries." Openlaw's Eldred v. Ashcroft page has more information about the case, which seeks to challenge the most recent retroactive extension of copyright terms.

Comments

The Jury

[zpengo]

The jury selection process has been completed, and a leak from a reputable source indicates that Dr. Dre, Eminem, and members of the band Metallica have already been selected....

Great Name

[zpengo]

The 1998 copyright changes, known as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, bring U.S. rules in line with those in the European Union.

With a name like "Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act", it's got to be bad news...

Re:My ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like the libraries should ask the copyright holders a simple question: "Will you settle for obscurity and eventually oblivion, or will you present reasonable terms of use?" Can't say I'd be sorry if, say, N'Sync gets wiped out from the world's memory eventually due to tight-fisted copyright holders.

Pro bono ?

[Anonymous Coward]

> but also the extraordinary pro bono work of the law firm of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue.

Well, what is needed is an anti-Bono work, in that case...

Cheers,

--fred

Re:What can I do to help?

[david duncan scott]

Contributions to the National Arbor Day Foundation?

Re:Everything old is new again...

[alext]

"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be;
and that which is done is that which shall be done;
and there is no new thing under the sun."
(c) 1500BC Ecclesiastes
All Rights Reserved

Re:One viewpoint

[Black Parrot]

> > Fifty years is plenty long enough for a corporation to reap its rewards...

> That's your opinion. Disney, who is still reaping plenty of rewards from Mickey Mouse, might think a little differently...

Can't take it with you directly, but you can still profit from your IP on the other side?

My question is, what does he spend it on over there?

Re:Chart shows what could happen.

[ethereal]

There are three kinds of untruth in the world: lies, statistics, and confusing charts that are marked without units in order to make a point.

Yeah.

[Greyfox]

The Democrats have the corporate dick up their ass as much as the Republicans do. Enron's donations were something along the lines of 52% to Republicans and 48% to Democrats. If you hit opensecrets.org, you'll see that most companies similarly hedge their bets. They don't care who's in office as long as the person there is passing laws favorable to them.

The solution, of course, is for all Slashdotters to move to Montana and take over the political scene there...

Modest Propsal

[stinkydog]

What is to keep a MegaCorp from stockpiling authors to keep their copyrights intact. I envision an X-Files room under corpHQ with rows of authors, poets and musicians in cryotubes with hearts beating once a minute. "See, they are still alive!"

SD

Re:Modest Propsal

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

I envision an X-Files room under corpHQ with rows of authors, poets and musicians in cryotubes with hearts beating once a minute.

Hey, provided they properly do the research to achieve this and properly patent the technology (so that it becomes public domain in 20 years!) I could cope with this. Something like this would be quite handy to the medical community, I suspect.

On the other hand, the sorts of corporations we're talking about here would probably just freeze the bodies solid, and then warn everyone that the "thawing them out again" technology is still under development, so you can't try to thaw them to see if they're still alive because the process can kill them (and if you try, you get flung in jail for manslaughter, AND get sued by the corporations for loss of potential income they claim the author/artist would have earned them...)

I'd better stop, I'm scaring myself... :-)

Re:Everything old is new again...

[alext]

Hey, I don't wish to be excommunicated, I'm just pointing out the holy copyright clause.

His message may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including divine inspiration, holy fiat, papal encyclical...