The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. And vice versa. It was one of those up-and-down weeks.
On the debit side, the US Supreme Court decided by a 7-2 majority that it was not going to restrict Congress’s predilection for extending copyright periods way beyond anything envisaged by the constitution.
The decision represents a devastating blow to internet publishers and others who want to make old books, films and other creative works available online. The case was a legal challenge to the 1998 Copyright Extension Act, which extended the period of copyright protection by a further 20 years, largely at the behest of Disney and other movie studios which were aghast at the prospect of their back lists finally escaping into the public domain.
The court’s majority verdict was that the 1998 extension did not represent unconstitutional overreaching by Congress; nor was it a violation of free-speech rights. ‘We are not at liberty to second-guess congressional determinations and policy judgments of this order, however debatable or arguably unwise they may be,’ said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Although Congress has lengthened copyright 11 times in the past 40 years, each extension was for a finite period - and therefore not in violation of the power to authorise copyright for ‘limited times’ bestowed by the constitution on Congress. It means that US legislators - many of whom are in the pockets of Hollywood lobbyists - can continue to deliver to Disney & Co the control they crave. As the New York Times put it, ‘we are seeing the beginning of the end of public domain and the birth of copyright perpetuity’.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/jan/19/newmedia.business
Dang, your post was one after I made a h@lf@$$ attempt to say what you said so eloquently.