Eldred vs. Ashcroft

Sylver Dragon writes "Business week has a story about Eldred v. Ashcroft. Seems that Eldred wants to put some of Robert Frost's works on the web, but, sadly, those were copyrighted. What makes this more interesting, is that the works would have become public domain, had congress not extended the length of copyright after an artists death. So now, the Supreme court must decide if congress overstepped the bounds of the constutional provisions for copyright laws, when they made the last extension. With any luck, the Supreme Court will choose the "road less traveled."" The plaintiffs have a webpage with much information.

Comments

Excellent Wired article

[Murphy(c)]

There is and excellent Wired article, that touches the subject.
It gives you the idea of why they had to go with a "low profile" like Eldred and not some one like Michael Hartthe of the Gutenberg project.

Really an interresting read.
Murphy(c)

Re:Whats wrong with this law?

[dreamword]

Agreed that this should go away through Congress. However, the constitutional case against it isn't as weak as you suggest.

As Lessig, Sullivan, et al.'s brief notes, the argument is not that Congress doesn't have the right to regulate copyright, but that the clause imposes limits:

• "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" -- The key word here is "progress." While it can be said that handing a pile of cash to Disney and RIAA/MPAA members will lead them to produce more content (since they have a pile of money), the petitioners say this isn't good enough. They say that promoting progress can't be done just by handing piles of money to, say, Gershwin's estate, at the public's expense, since Gershwin's estate can't do anything for progress, since Gershwin's dead.
  
• "For limited times" -- True, 90 years is a limited time. However, there has to be a limit to Congress's power to extend otherwise the time wouldn't be limited. And if there is a limit, we've reached or exceeded it. The retroactive portion of the CTEA really pushes the outside of any reasonable definition of "limited".
  

There's no doubt that copyright fosters invention and discovery. We're not talking about abolishing copyright itself. We're just saying that handing out a longer copyright for a piece of progress that's already completed can't possibly foster invention or discovery, especially when most of these windfalls are going to corporations representing the works of dead guys.

-- Dreamword
(Becoming a common law fan more and more each day)

Promoting progress through copyright extension

[smiff]

According to the government, if they can come up with just one reason that retroactive copyright extension promotes progress, the law is constitutional. They also argue that the constitution does not restrict congress at all. Here are some arguments taken from the defendants legal briefs:

1. By extending copyrights, congress is allowing large copyright holders to continue generating revenue from old works. The copyright holders then invest that revenue in new marginal and high risk works.
2. Historical practice confirms that "Limited Times" does not mean a single, inalterable, limited time. Every single copyright extension has extended the copyright of existing works.
3. The CTEA's application to existing works increases incentives for copyright holders to restore and disseminate their works.
4. The CTEA's impact on international trade promotes progress in the United States.
5. The CTEA is not part of a string of infinite expansions, but rather a means to harmonize copyright with the European Union. "In an era of multinational publishers and instantaneous electronic transmission, harmonization in this regard has obvious practical benefits"
6. If the CTEA is limited in regards to future works, it must necessarily be limited as it applies to existing works as well.
7. Thomas Jefferson signed the 1808 and 1809 patent term extensions into law, and James Madison signed the 1815 patent term extension into law. Thus the nation's founders never meant "limited times" to mean "unalterable limited times".

Excellent briefs

[Saib0t]

If you have a bit of time on your hands, reading the briefs can be an englightening experience.
Both are written in "plain english" that any of the slashdot readers should be able to understand.

I'm not going to discuss them, the article on wired does that, partially...

For those interested, the links are:
Reply Brief for the Petitioners and
Government Response Brief

When suing the Government...

[yerricde]

How exactly did they suggest Ashcroft is behind this?

The U.S. Constitution prohibits people from suing Congress. So if you want a federal law invalidated, you sue the current Attorney General in his or her official capacity as Attorney General to get an injunction against enforcing the law.

Re:Ashcroft Strikes Again

[Proaxiom]

The original name of the suit was "Eldred vs. Reno", but was renamed with the administration change.

It's not like Reno had much to do with it either, though. Congress passed the bill into law. At the time it was dubbed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, as he and later his widow pushed for it. Bono was actually in favour of unlimited copyright terms, but that is prohibited by the US constitution.

Yes, because you have no bananas.

[yerricde]

Quite being lazy and write your own book.

For books, that may be possible, but for musical works, I'm not so sure. The standard for copying under United States copyright law is substantial similarity, and courts have found that matching four notes of another song's hook is more than enough to make one melody substantially similar to another (Handel v. Silver). To match four notes, given that what key they're played in is irrelevant, you have to match the pitch interval from one note to the next, and the time interval from one note to the next. There are fewer than 50,000 possible melodic hooks (read this page for details).

So how is it possible to write a song without stepping on somebody else's copyright?