Internet Archive Loses Copyright Fight

tiltowait writes "As reported on LISNews.com, the Internet Archive has lost a copyright lawsuit which challenged the Congressional lengthening of copyright terms and conditions. The ruling has implications for abandonware and other copyright-eligible materials that have no active owner. Brewster Kahle plans to appeal the decision." The decision is available. As we noted in an earlier story, the Eldred case challenged the length of copyright expansion, this one challenged the breadth, and so far, this one is going about as well as the Eldred case did. Stanford has an overview of the case.

Comments

Re:Abandonware is still copyright-eligible

[archipunk]

I thought abandonware was defined as software that was no longer commercially available or supported. What's that got to do with copyright?

Software is subject to copyright law.

The law states that copying, distributing, etc. that material, even if it is abandoned and unsupported, is illegal. But there are many individuals who want to use, modify, develop, etc. those materials who are presently prevented from doing so by the law.

If abandoned material was no longer encumbered by copyright, people with an interest could do new and creative things with those materials. Instead, though, the law acts to stifle and constrain new advances and developments, rather than to encourage them.

It preserves the rights of ignorance and suppression, rather than allowing and encouraging creativity, invention, and development.