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American Bar Association to Endorse Retroactive Copyright Extensions

Apr 09, 2002  By Don Marti
 in
Eldred v. Ashcroft? The ABA supports the new US law that offers incentives to dead people.

The American Bar Association's Intellectual Property Law section is reporting that the association plans to file an amicus brief with the Supreme Court claiming that the 1998 retroactive extension of the term of copyright is constitutional.

"The case could present a field day for those who have an anti-IP sentiment--those who say information wants to be free, less protection is necessarily better, the public domain promotes the progress of science and useful arts better than IP [intellectual property], and when technology advances, IP rights must be cut back," the site says.

But leaving aside the fuzzy-headed "Booga booga! John Perry Barlow wants to take your copyrights away!" stuff for one minute, look at the actual case. [Eldred v. Ashcroft], the case actually before the Supreme Court, does not seek to cut back the original rights of any copyright holder. The case simply challenges the 1998 retroactive extension of copyrights beyond the term originally granted to the copyright holder.

The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act extended the term of copyright from 50 years after the death of the author to 70 years or from 75 years to 95 years for corporate copyright holders. In other words, it takes the original copyright bargain, which authors obviously found fair, and extends it. How long will copyright term extensions go on?

Don Marti is Technical Editor of Linux Journal.

email: dmarti@ssc.com

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From James Love of CPT: no brief after all

dmarti's picture
Submitted by dmarti (not verified) on Wed, 04/17/2002 - 01:00.

According to James Love of the Consumer Project on Technology, on April 14, the full ABA Executive board voted against the recommendation of the "Intellectual Property" section and decided not to send the amicus brief.

More news from Yale

dmarti's picture
Submitted by dmarti (not verified) on Wed, 04/10/2002 - 01:00.

Ernest Miller of Yale's LawMeme site has also written an article about this issue.

Baker states that those who defend the law do not believe the First Amendment goes so far, claiming that, "this extension, which brings U.S. law closer to the law in Europe, does not mean that extensions will go on forever." However, he failed to enumerate any limiting principle, implicitly endorsing Jack Valenti's call for a copyright term of "forever, less a day."

Re: American Bar Association to Endorse Retroactive Copyright Ex

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 04/10/2002 - 01:00.

It's not an incentive for the dead. It's an allowance for the great-great-grandchildren of the creative, because reducing the estate taxes just isn't good enough to keep them rich.

Re: American Bar Association to Endorse Retroactive Copyright Ex

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 04/10/2002 - 01:00.

Here is a graph showing the size of the public domain based on a model (that is, an approximation) which assumes that the number of copyrighted works created in any year is in constant proportion to the population. The graph compares the size of the public domain for a 28 year term of copyright (the initial maximum U.S. term) to its size if term extensions (approximating the historical U.S. extensions) are included at various points.

Re: American Bar Association to Endorse Retroactive Copyright Ex

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 04/10/2002 - 01:00.

Interesting graph. However, it would be better to see the retroactive effects of each copyright extension individually (i.e. seperate lines for 1831, 1909, and 1962) showing how many works would be allowed to enter the public domain under each of these laws if the subsequent extensions had not been passed.