Lorem Ipsum

I don't think I have the energy right now to go into as much detail as I'd like about the recent Supreme Court decision regarding the constitutionality of the copyright extension act. But I'll essay a few notes before I go read some subs.

First, I should note that there are plenty of reasons to dislike the notion of extending copyrights by yet another 20 years; I certainly agree that it's a bad law and should not have been passed. I personally feel that even the previous durations (50 years after death of author for most stuff published after 1/1/1978 copyrighted by an "identified natural person," 75 years from date of publication for work-for-hire published after that date) were excessive; I certainly don't think that the new 70- and 95-year durations are a good idea.

On the other hand, I continue to feel that those on the pro-public-domain side are exaggerating the direness of the straits in which we find ourselves. The existence of copyright doesn't prevent huge quantities of art in all media from being produced, and nothing that's gone into the public domain is re-copyrighted by the 1998 Bono copyright-extension act that was the subject of the current contention. Also, according to the Supremes, the copyright acts in the US in recent decades have been designed to bring US law into accord with European law on the subject; doesn't mean the corresponding European laws are good laws, but it does suggest less outright manipulation of the legal system by corporations (especially Disney) than a lot of people have been indicating. (Though certainly Disney did lobby heavily for the law's passage, and has a lot to gain by it.)

Joe pointed us to the official Supreme Court opinions, posted online as PDF files. So far I've only read about half of the majority opinion (written by Ginsburg), but as with many SCOTUS opinions, I find it totally fascinating. I'm finding myself becoming convinced that the law isn't unconstitutional; it's a lousy law, and against the public interest, but I find myself agreeing that that's something to take up with Congress rather than with the Supremes. (Yes, yes, who cares what I think? It's not like I'm an expert on constitutional law or anything; Lawrence Lessig is, and he thought the law was unconstitutional. I'm just being a pundit here.)

I haven't even glanced at the dissents yet, but hope to do that soon. For now, I'll just say (apropos of my earlier comments about skewering) that I adore the Supremes when they're being snide. A footnote in the majority opinion, for example, says:

We note again that JUSTICE BREYER makes no such concession. ... Moving beyond the bounds of the parties' presentations, and with abundant policy arguments but precious little support from precedent, he would condemn Congress' entire product as irrational.

Hee hee—I'm especially tickled by the unintended out-of-context meaning that "Congress' entire product [is] irrational" suggests. Anyway, I'm definitely looking forward to reading Breyer's dissent.

I think I just saw that Lessig and the totally fabulous Pamela Samuelson (who writes and speaks clearly and articulately about software patents, among other things) will be speaking at Stanford in May; I'll try and remember to get more details about that.