FC: Update on "Eldred" copyright extension lawsuit

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Politech archive on Eldred case:
http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=eldred

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Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 13:08:10 -0400
From: Ernest Miller <ernest.miller () aya yale edu>
To: declan () well com
Subject: Briefs filed in Eldred v. Ashcroft

The case concerns the constitutionality of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term 
Extension Act (CTEA) which, following intense lobbying by media 
conglomerates such as Disney and Time Warner, was enacted by Congress in 
1998 and extended the term of all existing and future copyrights by twenty 
years. Eric Eldred, who maintains a website that gives readers free access 
to materials whose copyrights have expired, challenged the CTEA with the 
assistance of the Openlaw project of the Berkman Center. Although Eldred 
has lost in both the district and appellate courts, the case has been 
accepted for review by the Supreme Court

Read a short summary of one of the amicus briefs on LawMeme:
http://research.yale.edu/lawmeme/

Read all the briefs:
http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/eldredvashcroft/legal.html

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Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 16:59:33 -0700
To: declan () well com
From: Rick Prelinger <footage () panix com>
Subject: copyright extension

Declan,

Perhaps of interest...

My company (Prelinger Archives, a for-profit moving image archives and 
stock footage supplier) and two non-profits, the Internet Archive and 
Project Gutenberg, recently collaborated on an amicus brief for Eldred v. 
Ashcroft, the challenge to the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act due to be 
argued before the Supreme Court in the autumn.  Basically we argue that a 
strong and constantly self-renewing public domain is critical, now that 
digital archives exist and make it feasible to deliver creative works to a 
broad public at low cost.

The brief was authored by a number of lawyers including staff at the 
Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic at Boalt Hall, UC Berkeley.


You can read or download the brief here:

http://www.prelinger.com/eldredbrief.pdf

Best,

Rick
--

Rick Prelinger
Prelinger Archives    http://www.prelinger.com
P.O. Box 590622, San Francisco, Calif. 94159-0622
+1 415 750-0445      Fax: +1 415 750-0607
footage () panix com

Internet Moving Images Archive: http://www.moviearchive.org

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Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 22:15:49 -0400
To: declan () well com
From: Jonathan Zittrain <zittrain () law harvard edu>
Subject: eldred v. ashcroft briefs filed today

Declan,

The petitioners filed their opening briefs today in Eldred v. Ashcroft, the 
challenge to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act now pending before 
the Supreme Court.  Numerous amici filed in support as well, including 
multiple Nobel laureate economists, the Free Software Foundation, 
constitutional and IP law profs, the American Library Association, the 
Eagle Forum, the American Historical Association, distinguished historians, 
and Intel Corp.  All in all an amazing group of people and institutions 
spanning the ideological and sectoral spectrums.  Most of the briefs are 
available at <http://eldred.cc/news/#brief>, with general information at 
<http://eldred.cc> and <http://eldred.openlaw.org>.

The next shoe to drop will be the government's reply sometime over the 
summer, our reply brief, and then argument in the fall.  ...JZ




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