FC: DC circuit court rules copyright extension act is constitutional

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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[From a source who wished to remain anonymous]

Without attribution you might want to let your list know about today's 
decision in Eldred v. Reno, the constitutional challenge to the CTEA.  The 
case was argued by Lessig.

It's on-line at:
http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/common/opinions/200102/99-5430a.txt

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Here's an excerpt from the majority's opinion, written by Judge Ginsburg:

>      In sum, we hold that the CTEA is a proper exercise of the
> Congress's power under the Copyright Clause.  The plain-
> tiffs' first amendment objection fails because they have no
> cognizable first amendment interest in the copyrighted works
> of others.  Their objection that extending the term of a
> subsisting copyright violates the requirement of originality
> misses the mark because originality is by its nature a thresh-
> old inquiry relevant to copyrightability, not a continuing
> concern relevant to the authority of the Congress to extend
> the term of a copyright.
>
>      Whatever wisdom or folly the plaintiffs may see in the
> particular "limited Times" for which the Congress has set the
> duration of copyrights, that decision is subject to judicial
> review only for rationality.  This is no less true when the
> Congress modifies the term of an existing copyright than
> when it sets the term initially, and the plaintiffs -- as
> opposed to one of the amici -- do not dispute that the CTEA
> satisfies this standard of review.  The question whether the
> preamble of the Copyright Clause bars the extension of
> subsisting copyrights -- a question to which the analysis in
> Schnapper seems to require a negative answer -- may be
> revisited only by the court sitting en banc in a future case in
> which a party to the litigation argues the point.




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