Sunday, April 21, 2002
Eldred and the Copyright Barons
Posted by Jeff Kirvin in "ARTICLE" @ 10:01 PM
http://www.writingonyourpalm.net/column020422.htm
Has Congress overextended its power by extending copyright to unreasonable lengths? The United States Supreme Court will ask that very question this year. Here's a look at the issues.
[The Congress shall have power] "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;"
-- Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution
"Intellectual property law assures authors the right to their original expression, but encourages others to build freely on the ideas that underlie it. This result is neither unfair nor unfortunate: It is the means by which intellectual property law advances the progress of science and art. We give authors certain exclusive rights, but in exchange we get a richer public domain... Nothing today, likely nothing since we tamed fire, is genuinely new: Culture, like science and technology, grows by accretion, each new creator building on the works of those who came before. Overprotection stifles the very creative forces it's supposed to nurture."
-- Judge Alex Kozinski, United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
"There is nothing new under the sun."
-- Ecclesiastes 1:9
This year the United States Supreme Court will hear Eldred vs Ashcroft, a case that could have profound effect on the nature of copyright itself. Eric Eldred used to run a website devoted to providing public domain books in HTML, including acclaimed "editions" of Nathaniel Hawthorne. These hyperlinked, cross-referenced works were "derivative works", but unique and valuable in that they allowed for a new way of looking at old books.
Read the rest at Writing On Your Palm.
Has Congress overextended its power by extending copyright to unreasonable lengths? The United States Supreme Court will ask that very question this year. Here's a look at the issues.
[The Congress shall have power] "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;"
-- Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution
"Intellectual property law assures authors the right to their original expression, but encourages others to build freely on the ideas that underlie it. This result is neither unfair nor unfortunate: It is the means by which intellectual property law advances the progress of science and art. We give authors certain exclusive rights, but in exchange we get a richer public domain... Nothing today, likely nothing since we tamed fire, is genuinely new: Culture, like science and technology, grows by accretion, each new creator building on the works of those who came before. Overprotection stifles the very creative forces it's supposed to nurture."
-- Judge Alex Kozinski, United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
"There is nothing new under the sun."
-- Ecclesiastes 1:9
This year the United States Supreme Court will hear Eldred vs Ashcroft, a case that could have profound effect on the nature of copyright itself. Eric Eldred used to run a website devoted to providing public domain books in HTML, including acclaimed "editions" of Nathaniel Hawthorne. These hyperlinked, cross-referenced works were "derivative works", but unique and valuable in that they allowed for a new way of looking at old books.
Read the rest at Writing On Your Palm.
