Via Alas, a Blog, a fascinating article by Lawrence Lessig on the Copyright Term Extension Act, and his role in a challenge to it.
If you’re not familiar with Prof. Lessig, he argued against the act before the Supreme Court, and did so on Constitutional grounds. His argument was, in its nature, conservative, based on a strict interpretation of the intention of the constituters. He assumed it would appeal to Justices Scalia, Rhenquist and Thomas, who had limited the powers of Congress in areas that were only very indirectly interstate commerce. He wanted to treat the appearance like a seminar. He appealed to the reason of the court. He disdained any pathetic argument; he didn’t make the justices want to find for him.
And they didn’t.
In a pretty-much unrelated note, such works as this journal note to which gannet pointed me are pretty clearly illegal. The piece is made up of other artists’ works, and clearly would, under pretty much any copyright law that treats intellectual property similarly to real property, be an infringement of the rights of the holders. And yet, I’m not at all upset that the page exists. With reckless disregard for the law, and without asking anybody’s permission, Aldon Hynes has created something that Your Humble Blogger quite likes. Now, I don’t believe in intellectual property, but I do believe in following the law, in general. So I clearly misstated myself earlier ... what I meant to say was that Mr. Hynes clearly must have sought and obtained permission to create that page, and that I link to it on that understanding. Right?
Redintegro Iraq,
-Vardibidian.