NYT. The Supreme Court is going to review Sonny Bono's copyright term extension act! Woo Hoo! The thrust of the review is to determine whether or not Congress overstepped its authority in extending copyright protection to 95 years — the Constitution only empowers Congress to protect copyrights for “limited times” in order to foster creativity. 95 years or the life of the artist plus 70 years is clearly not a limited time. The mechanism at work here is that copyright holders have in the past and will in the future use their economic power to push Congress to extend expiration of existing copyrights. The only safety valve is the Supreme Court which should determine what “limited times” actually means.
Lessig and Jaszi are to be congratulated for their personal efforts (and the American Library Association). If only we could go back to the original 14 year term. Wow. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]