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

Text of openlaw annoucement about the case

[Seth Finkelstein]

Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 11:27:11 -0500
To: openlaw-announce [at-sign] eon.law.harvard.edu
From: Wendy Seltzer
Subject: [openlaw] Eldred v. Ashcroft to the Supreme Court

From Lawrence Lessig and the Openlaw team:

We are extremely pleased to report that the Supreme Court has today granted cert in Eldred v. Ashcroft. After the case was listed on the court's conference calendar 4 weeks in a row, the court decided to hear the full range of issues in the appeal.

We have gotten this far because of the extraordinary work and support of many many people -- especially the plaintiffs in this case, but also the extraordinary pro bono work of the law firm of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue.

We would also not be here but for the extraordinary help of a wide range of law professors and volunteer lawyers, who have used the Openlaw process to make our work better. Those professors signed the amicus briefs in this case, as did the Eagle Forum and Cato Institute.

There's just one more step in this process of reversing Congress' mistake: After getting 0 votes in the District Court, 2 votes in the Court of Appeals, and now at least 4 votes in the Supreme Court to hear the case, we now need just 5 to prevail.

Thank you for your continued interest and support. Read more background on the case and join the Openlaw process at http://eldred.openlaw.org/

Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

two points

[cats-paw]

1. If you read the _original_ ruling in this case you will find that the judges said something to the effect of - it's not up to use to determine if 70 years is "too long". Utter hogwash of course, it is up to them to determine whether a specified amount of time is constitutional under the limited time provision. The whole ruling was just ridiculous - you are encouraged to read it. Pay particular attention to the comments of the (lone) dissenter.

2. If the supreme court rules in favor of the copyright extensions it's going to be a dark day indeed - there will be no _legal_ recourse left to the forces of good.