[DMCA-Activists] Forbes on Eldred / Scalia Quote

[Seth Johnson]

(Forwarded from DVD Discussion list.  Forbes article text
pasted below.  -- Seth)

-------- Original Message --------
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2002 13:16:43 -070024, 2002
From: "Michael A Rolenz" <address@hidden>
To: address@hidden

> http://www.forbes.com/markets/newswire/2002/10/09/rtr745913.html

Justice Antonin Scalia questioned why Congress needed to
include existing works when it decided to beef up copyright
laws. If the idea of copyright law is to encourage artists
to produce new work, why should it also apply to works
created 70 years ago, he asked.

"Why is it inequitable if they get what they're entitled to
at the time they make the work?" Scalia asked.


====================================================
As Paul Ruiz pointed out at 

http://research.yale.edu/lawmeme/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=392

Justice Counting is not a science 

But these there are some interesting quotations forming.in
some of the posting (see the link at www.eldred.cc)  If it
is true that Jack Valenti smiled as he walked in, then he
may not have been smiling as he walked out. Given the small
number of quotation that's coming out of the reports, The
court does not consider this a trivial question at all. I'd
love to be a fly on the wall when they meet in conference on
this one! I suspect that what may happened is a selective
overturning of CTEA (e.g., no retroactive extension. no
retroactive copyright.)

----

> http://www.forbes.com/markets/newswire/2002/10/09/rtr745913.html

Mickey Mouse copyright case hits US Supreme Court

By Andy Sullivan
10.09.02, 2:58 PM ET


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court considered
Wednesday whether Robert Frost poems and Mickey Mouse movies
made more than 75 years ago should become public property or
remain in the hands of their owners for another 20 years.

While some of the justices said that they thought current
copyright protections stretched too far, they seemed
reluctant to step into an arena they have largely left to
Congress for more than 200 years.

"The chaos that would ensue would be horrendous," Justice
Stephen Breyer said.

At issue is the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension
Act, which extended the exclusive period that artists and
corporations can control their creative works by 20 years.

As a result, thousands of well-known works, from the
earliest Disney films to the novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald,
were prevented from passing into the public domain. Billions
of dollars of entertainment-industry profits are at stake.

The United States' top jurists focused their questions on
whether Congress had overstepped its authority, as set out
in the Constitution, to establish copyright protections for
"limited times."

The Constitution gives Congress the power to determine how
long creators should maintain exclusive control of their
works, to "promote the progress of science and useful arts."

Stanford University law professor Larry Lessig, who brought
the case on behalf of a New Hampshire hobbyist who published
public-domain books on the Internet, said that by repeatedly
extending the term, Congress was effectively not setting any
limits at all.



PUBLIC DOMAIN

"Unless this court draws a line, there will be no limit," he
said

The first federal copyright law, in 1790, established a
copyright term of 14 years, with an optional 14-year
extension. That was extended over the years and by 1976, had
stretched to life of the author plus 50 years, or 75 years
for works owned by corporations.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor seemed to agree that Congress
had gone too far, but pointed out that, technically, the
copyright term still had a limit.

"I can find a lot of fault with what Congress did here,
because it takes a lot of things out of the public domain,"
O'Connor said. "It's longer than one would think desirable,
but is it not limited?"

Justice Antonin Scalia questioned why Congress needed to
include existing works when it decided to beef up copyright
laws. If the idea of copyright law is to encourage artists
to produce new work, why should it also apply to works
created 70 years ago, he asked.

"Why is it inequitable if they get what they're entitled to
at the time they make the work?" Scalia asked.

Solicitor General Theodore Olson, arguing on behalf of the
government, said the law was designed to encourage not only
creators of new works, but also the distributors of those
works.

If movie studios or book publishers have no incentive to
promote their material it will effectively disappear from
public view, he said, and that's why Congress has always
applied copyright extensions to new and existing material.

Olson also emphasized that the Supreme Court has never
challenged Congress' authority on this issue since the first
copyright law was passed over 200 years ago.