Eldred v. Ashcroft
Encyclopedia
Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186 (2003) was a court case in the United States
challenging the constitutionality
of the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA). Oral argument was heard on October 9, 2002, and on January 15, 2003, the Supreme Court
held the CTEA constitutional by a 7-2 decision.
s by an additional 20 years from the terms set by the Copyright Act of 1976
. The law affected both new and existing works (making it both a prospective extension as well as a retroactive one). Specifically, for works published before January 1, 1978 and still in copyright on October 27, 1998, the term was extended to 95 years. For works authored by individuals on or after January 1, 1978 (including new works), the copyright term was extended to equal the life of the author plus 70 years. For works authored by joint authors, the copyright term was extended to the life of the last surviving author plus 70 years. In the case of works-for-hire
, anonymous or pseudonymous works, the term was set at 95 years from the date of first publication, or 120 years from creation.
The practical result of this was to prevent a number of works from entering the public domain
in 1998 and following years, as would have occurred under the Copyright Law of 1976. Materials which the plaintiffs had worked with and were ready to republish were now unavailable due to copyright restrictions.
The lead petitioner, Eric Eldred
, is an Internet
publisher. Eldred was joined by a group of commercial and non-commercial interests who relied on the public domain for their work. These included Dover Publications
, a commercial publisher of paperback books; Luck's Music Library, Inc., and Edwin F. Kalmus & Co., Inc., publishers of orchestral sheet music
; and a large number of amici
including the Free Software Foundation
, the American Association of Law Libraries
, the Bureau of National Affairs
, and the College Art Association
.
Supporting the law were the U.S. government, represented by the Attorney General
in an ex officio capacity (originally Janet Reno
, later replaced by John Ashcroft
), along with a set of amici
including the Motion Picture Association of America
, the Recording Industry Association of America
, ASCAP and Broadcast Music Incorporated
.
on January 11, 1999. The plaintiffs' argument was threefold:
In response, the government argued that Congress does indeed have the latitude to retroactively extend terms, so long as the individual extensions are also for "limited times," as required by the Constitution. As an argument for this position, they referred to the Copyright Act of 1790
, the first Federal copyright legislation, which applied Federal protection to existing works. Furthermore, they argued, neither the First Amendment nor the doctrine of public trust is applicable to copyright cases.
On October 28, 1999, Judge June Green issued a brief opinion rejecting all three of the petitioners' arguments. On the first count, she wrote that Congress had the power to extend terms as it wished, as long as the terms themselves were of limited duration. On the second count, she rejected the notion of First Amendment
scrutiny in copyright cases, based on her interpretation of Harper and Row Publishers, Inc., v. Nation Enterprises, an earlier Supreme Court decision. On the third count, she rejected the notion that public trust doctrine was applicable to copyright law.
, filing their initial brief
on May 22, 2000, and arguing the case on October 5 of the same year in front of a three-judge panel. Arguments were similar to those made in the district court, except for those regarding the public trust doctrine, which were not included in the appeal.
Instead, the plaintiffs extended their argument on the copyright clause to note that the clause requires Congress
to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts," and argued that retroactive extensions do not directly serve this purpose in the standard quid pro quo
previously required by the courts.
The case was decided on February 16, 2001. The appeals court upheld the decision of the district court in a 2-1 opinion. In a forceful dissent, Judge David Sentelle agreed with the plaintiffs that CTEA was indeed unconstitutional based on the "limited Times" requirement. Supreme Court precedent, he argued, held that one must be able to discern an "outer limit" to a limited power; in the case of retrospective copyright extensions, Congress could continue to extend copyright terms indefinitely through a set of limited extensions, thus rendering the "limited times" requirement meaningless.
Following this ruling, plaintiffs petitioned for a rehearing en banc
(in front of the full panel of nine judges). This petition was rejected, 7–2, with Judges Sentelle and David Tatel dissenting.
to the Supreme Court of the United States
. On February 19, 2002, the Court granted Certiorari, agreeing to hear the case.
Oral arguments were presented on October 9, 2002. Lead counsel for the plaintiff was Lawrence Lessig
; the government's case was argued by Solicitor General
Theodore Olson
.
Lessig refocused the Plaintiffs' brief to emphasize the Copyright clause restriction, as well as the First Amendment argument from the Appeals case. The decision to emphasize the Copyright clause argument was based on both the minority opinion of Judge Sentelle in the appeals court, and on several recent Supreme Court decisions authored by Chief Justice William Rehnquist
: United States v. Lopez
and United States v. Morrison
.
In both of those decisions, Rehnquist, along with four of the Court's more conservative justices, held Congressional legislation unconstitutional, because said legislation exceeded the limits of the Constitution's Commerce clause. This profound reversal of precedent, Lessig argued, could not be limited to only one of the enumerated powers. If the court felt that it had the power to review legislation under the Commerce clause, Lessig argued, then the Copyright clause deserved similar treatment, or at very least a "principled reason" must be stated for according such treatment to only one of the enumerated powers.
On January 15, 2003, the Court held the CTEA constitutional by a 7–2 decision. The majority opinion, written by Justice Ginsburg
, relied heavily on the Copyright Acts of 1790
, 1831
, 1909
, and 1976
as precedent for retroactive extensions. One of the arguments supporting the act was the life expectancy has significantly increased among the human population since the 18th century, and therefore copyright law needed extending as well. However, the major argument for the act that carried over into the case was that the Constitution specified that Congress only needed to set time limits for copyright, the length of which was left to their discretion. Thus, as long as the limit is not "forever," any limit set by Congress can be deemed constitutional.
A key factor in the CTEA’s passage was a 1993 European Union (EU) directive instructing EU members to establish a baseline copyright term of life plus 70 years and to deny this longer term to the works of any non-EU country whose laws did not secure the same extended term
. By extending the baseline United States copyright term, Congress sought to ensure that American authors would receive the same copyright protection in Europe as their European counterparts.
The Supreme Court declined to address Lessig's contention that Lopez and Morrison offered precedent for enforcing the Copyright clause, and instead reiterated the lower court's reasoning that a retroactive term extension can satisfy the "limited times" provision in the copyright clause, as long as the extension itself is limited instead of perpetual. Furthermore, the Court refused to apply the proportionality standards of the Fourteenth Amendment
or the free-speech standards in the First Amendment
to limit Congress's ability to confer copyrights for limited terms.
Justice Breyer
dissented, arguing that the CTEA amounted to a grant of perpetual copyright that undermined public interests. While the constitution grants Congress power to extend copyright terms in order to "promote the progress of science and useful arts," CTEA granted precedent to continually renew copyright terms making them virtually perpetual. Justice Breyer argued in his dissent that it is highly unlikely any artist will be more inclined to produce work knowing their great-grandchildren will receive royalties. With regard to retroactive copyright extension he viewed it foolish to apply the government's argument that income received from royalties allows artists to produce more work saying, "How will extension help today’s Noah Webster create new works 50 years after his death?"
In a separate dissenting opinion, Justice Stevens
also challenged the virtue of an individual reward, analyzing it from the perspective of patent law. He argued that the focus on compensation results only in “frustrating the legitimate members of the public who want to make use of it (a completed invention) in a free market.” Further, the compelling need to encourage creation is proportionally diminished once a work is already created. Yet while a formula pairing commercial viability to duration of protection may be said to produce more economically efficient results in respect of high technology inventions with shorter shelf-lives, the same perhaps cannot be said for certain forms of copyrighted works, for which the present value of expenditures relating to creation depend less on scientific equipment and research and development programmes and more on unquantifiable creativity.
Lessig expressed surprise that no decision was authored by Chief Justice Rehnquist or by any of the other four justices who supported the Lopez or Morrison decisions. Lessig later expressed regret that he based his argument on precedent rather than attempting to demonstrate that the weakening of the public domain would cause harm to the economic health of the country.
Related cases
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
challenging the constitutionality
United States constitutional law
United States constitutional law is the body of law governing the interpretation and implementation of the United States Constitution.- Introduction :United States constitutional law defines the scope and application of the terms of the Constitution...
of the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA). Oral argument was heard on October 9, 2002, and on January 15, 2003, the Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
held the CTEA constitutional by a 7-2 decision.
Background
The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (or CTEA) extended existing copyright termCopyright term
Copyright term is the length of time copyright subsists in a work before it passes into the public domain.- Length of copyright:Copyright subsists for a variety of lengths in different jurisdictions. The length of the term can depend on several factors, including the type of work Copyright term is...
s by an additional 20 years from the terms set by the Copyright Act of 1976
Copyright Act of 1976
The Copyright Act of 1976 is a United States copyright law and remains the primary basis of copyright law in the United States, as amended by several later enacted copyright provisions...
. The law affected both new and existing works (making it both a prospective extension as well as a retroactive one). Specifically, for works published before January 1, 1978 and still in copyright on October 27, 1998, the term was extended to 95 years. For works authored by individuals on or after January 1, 1978 (including new works), the copyright term was extended to equal the life of the author plus 70 years. For works authored by joint authors, the copyright term was extended to the life of the last surviving author plus 70 years. In the case of works-for-hire
Work for hire
A work made for hire is an exception to the general rule that the person who actually creates a work is the legally recognized author of that work...
, anonymous or pseudonymous works, the term was set at 95 years from the date of first publication, or 120 years from creation.
The practical result of this was to prevent a number of works from entering the public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
in 1998 and following years, as would have occurred under the Copyright Law of 1976. Materials which the plaintiffs had worked with and were ready to republish were now unavailable due to copyright restrictions.
Eric Eldred
Eric Eldred, born 1943, is an American literacy advocate and the proprietor of the unincorporated Eldritch Press, a website which republished the works of others which are in the public domain . Eldritch Press for some years ran on a Linux server from Eldred's home and is now hosted by Ibiblio and...
, is an Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
publisher. Eldred was joined by a group of commercial and non-commercial interests who relied on the public domain for their work. These included Dover Publications
Dover Publications
Dover Publications is an American book publisher founded in 1941 by Hayward Cirker and his wife, Blanche. It publishes primarily reissues, books no longer published by their original publishers. These are often, but not always, books in the public domain. The original published editions may be...
, a commercial publisher of paperback books; Luck's Music Library, Inc., and Edwin F. Kalmus & Co., Inc., publishers of orchestral sheet music
Sheet music
Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of music notation that uses modern musical symbols; like its analogs—books, pamphlets, etc.—the medium of sheet music typically is paper , although the access to musical notation in recent years includes also presentation on computer screens...
; and a large number of amici
Amicus curiae
An amicus curiae is someone, not a party to a case, who volunteers to offer information to assist a court in deciding a matter before it...
including the Free Software Foundation
Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation founded by Richard Stallman on 4 October 1985 to support the free software movement, a copyleft-based movement which aims to promote the universal freedom to create, distribute and modify computer software...
, the American Association of Law Libraries
American Association of Law Libraries
The American Association of Law Libraries "is a nonprofit educational organization with over 5,000 members nationwide. AALL's mission is to promote and enhance the value of law libraries to the legal and public communities, to foster the profession of law librarianship, and to provide leadership in...
, the Bureau of National Affairs
Bureau of National Affairs
The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. — known as BNA — is an independent, privately owned publisher of specialized online and print news and information for professionals in business and government, headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, USA...
, and the College Art Association
College Art Association
The College Art Association of America is the principal professional association in the United States for practitioners and scholars of art, art history, and art criticism...
.
Supporting the law were the U.S. government, represented by the Attorney General
United States Attorney General
The United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The attorney general is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government...
in an ex officio capacity (originally Janet Reno
Janet Reno
Janet Wood Reno is a former Attorney General of the United States . She was nominated by President Bill Clinton on February 11, 1993, and confirmed on March 11...
, later replaced by John Ashcroft
John Ashcroft
John David Ashcroft is a United States politician who served as the 79th United States Attorney General, from 2001 until 2005, appointed by President George W. Bush. Ashcroft previously served as the 50th Governor of Missouri and a U.S...
), along with a set of amici
Amicus curiae
An amicus curiae is someone, not a party to a case, who volunteers to offer information to assist a court in deciding a matter before it...
including the Motion Picture Association of America
Motion Picture Association of America
The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. , originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America , was founded in 1922 and is designed to advance the business interests of its members...
, the Recording Industry Association of America
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States...
, ASCAP and Broadcast Music Incorporated
Broadcast Music Incorporated
Broadcast Music, Inc. is one of three United States performing rights organizations, along with ASCAP and SESAC. It collects license fees on behalf of songwriters, composers, and music publishers and distributes them as royalties to those members whose works have been performed...
.
District court
The original complaint was filed in the United States District Court for the District of ColumbiaUnited States District Court for the District of Columbia
The United States District Court for the District of Columbia is a federal district court. Appeals from the District are taken to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit The United States District Court for the District of Columbia (in case citations, D.D.C.) is a...
on January 11, 1999. The plaintiffs' argument was threefold:
- That by retroactively extending copyright terms, Congress had violated the requirements of the Constitution's Copyright ClauseCopyright ClauseArticle I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, known as the Copyright Clause, empowers the United States Congress:- Other Terms :This clause is also referred to as:* Copyright and Patent Clause* Patent and Copyright Clause...
, which gives Congress the following 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" (emphasis added)
Plaintiffs argued that by reading this formulation so as to allow for any number of retroactive extensions, Congress could in practice guarantee an unlimited period of copyright protection, thus thwarting the intent of the clause. - That any copyright law must be subject to scrutiny under the First AmendmentFirst Amendment to the United States ConstitutionThe First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
, thereby ensuring a balance between freedom of speech and the interests of copyright. - That the doctrine of public trustPublic trustThe concept of the public trust relates back to the origins of democratic government and its seminal idea that within the public lies the true power and future of a society; therefore, whatever trust the public places in its officials must be respected....
requires the government to show a public benefit to any transfer of public property into private hands, and that the CTEA violates this doctrine by withdrawing material from the public domain.
In response, the government argued that Congress does indeed have the latitude to retroactively extend terms, so long as the individual extensions are also for "limited times," as required by the Constitution. As an argument for this position, they referred to the Copyright Act of 1790
Copyright Act of 1790
The Copyright Act of 1790 was the first federal copyright act to be instituted in the United States, though most of the states had passed various legislation securing copyrights in the years immediately following the Revolutionary War...
, the first Federal copyright legislation, which applied Federal protection to existing works. Furthermore, they argued, neither the First Amendment nor the doctrine of public trust is applicable to copyright cases.
On October 28, 1999, Judge June Green issued a brief opinion rejecting all three of the petitioners' arguments. On the first count, she wrote that Congress had the power to extend terms as it wished, as long as the terms themselves were of limited duration. On the second count, she rejected the notion of First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
scrutiny in copyright cases, based on her interpretation of Harper and Row Publishers, Inc., v. Nation Enterprises, an earlier Supreme Court decision. On the third count, she rejected the notion that public trust doctrine was applicable to copyright law.
Court of Appeals
The plaintiffs appealed the decision of the district court to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia CircuitUnited States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit known informally as the D.C. Circuit, is the federal appellate court for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Appeals from the D.C. Circuit, as with all the U.S. Courts of Appeals, are heard on a...
, filing their initial brief
Brief (law)
A brief is a written legal document used in various legal adversarial systems that is presented to a court arguing why the party to the case should prevail....
on May 22, 2000, and arguing the case on October 5 of the same year in front of a three-judge panel. Arguments were similar to those made in the district court, except for those regarding the public trust doctrine, which were not included in the appeal.
Instead, the plaintiffs extended their argument on the copyright clause to note that the clause requires Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts," and argued that retroactive extensions do not directly serve this purpose in the standard quid pro quo
Quid pro quo
Quid pro quo most often means a more-or-less equal exchange or substitution of goods or services. English speakers often use the term to mean "a favour for a favour" and the phrases with almost identical meaning include: "give and take", "tit for tat", "this for that", and "you scratch my back,...
previously required by the courts.
The case was decided on February 16, 2001. The appeals court upheld the decision of the district court in a 2-1 opinion. In a forceful dissent, Judge David Sentelle agreed with the plaintiffs that CTEA was indeed unconstitutional based on the "limited Times" requirement. Supreme Court precedent, he argued, held that one must be able to discern an "outer limit" to a limited power; in the case of retrospective copyright extensions, Congress could continue to extend copyright terms indefinitely through a set of limited extensions, thus rendering the "limited times" requirement meaningless.
Following this ruling, plaintiffs petitioned for a rehearing en banc
En banc
En banc, in banc, in banco or in bank is a French term used to refer to the hearing of a legal case where all judges of a court will hear the case , rather than a panel of them. It is often used for unusually complex cases or cases considered to be of greater importance...
(in front of the full panel of nine judges). This petition was rejected, 7–2, with Judges Sentelle and David Tatel dissenting.
Supreme Court
On October 11, 2001, the plaintiffs filed a petition for certiorariCertiorari
Certiorari is a type of writ seeking judicial review, recognized in U.S., Roman, English, Philippine, and other law. Certiorari is the present passive infinitive of the Latin certiorare...
to the Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
. On February 19, 2002, the Court granted Certiorari, agreeing to hear the case.
Oral arguments were presented on October 9, 2002. Lead counsel for the plaintiff was Lawrence Lessig
Lawrence Lessig
Lawrence "Larry" Lessig is an American academic and political activist. He is best known as a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications, and he has called for state-based activism to promote substantive...
; the government's case was argued by Solicitor General
United States Solicitor General
The United States Solicitor General is the person appointed to represent the federal government of the United States before the Supreme Court of the United States. The current Solicitor General, Donald B. Verrilli, Jr. was confirmed by the United States Senate on June 6, 2011 and sworn in on June...
Theodore Olson
Theodore Olson
Theodore Bevry Olson is a former United States Solicitor General, serving from June 2001 to July 2004 under President George W. Bush.- Early life :...
.
Lessig refocused the Plaintiffs' brief to emphasize the Copyright clause restriction, as well as the First Amendment argument from the Appeals case. The decision to emphasize the Copyright clause argument was based on both the minority opinion of Judge Sentelle in the appeals court, and on several recent Supreme Court decisions authored by Chief Justice William Rehnquist
William Rehnquist
William Hubbs Rehnquist was an American lawyer, jurist, and political figure who served as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States and later as the 16th Chief Justice of the United States...
: United States v. Lopez
United States v. Lopez
United States v. Alfonso Lopez, Jr., was the first United States Supreme Court case since the New Deal to set limits to Congress's power under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.-Background:...
and United States v. Morrison
United States v. Morrison
United States v. Morrison, is a United States Supreme Court decision which held that parts of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 were unconstitutional because they exceeded congressional power under the Commerce Clause and under section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.-...
.
In both of those decisions, Rehnquist, along with four of the Court's more conservative justices, held Congressional legislation unconstitutional, because said legislation exceeded the limits of the Constitution's Commerce clause. This profound reversal of precedent, Lessig argued, could not be limited to only one of the enumerated powers. If the court felt that it had the power to review legislation under the Commerce clause, Lessig argued, then the Copyright clause deserved similar treatment, or at very least a "principled reason" must be stated for according such treatment to only one of the enumerated powers.
On January 15, 2003, the Court held the CTEA constitutional by a 7–2 decision. The majority opinion, written by Justice Ginsburg
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Ruth Joan Bader Ginsburg is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Ginsburg was appointed by President Bill Clinton and took the oath of office on August 10, 1993. She is the second female justice and the first Jewish female justice.She is generally viewed as belonging to...
, relied heavily on the Copyright Acts of 1790
Copyright Act of 1790
The Copyright Act of 1790 was the first federal copyright act to be instituted in the United States, though most of the states had passed various legislation securing copyrights in the years immediately following the Revolutionary War...
, 1831
Copyright Act of 1831
The Copyright Act of 1831 was the first general revision to United States copyright law. The bill is largely the result of lobbying efforts by American lexicographer Noah Webster.The key changes in the Act included:...
, 1909
Copyright Act of 1909
The Copyright Act of 1909 was a landmark statute in United States statutory copyright law. It became Public Law number 60-349 on March 4, 1909 by the 60th United States Congress, and it went into effect on July 1, 1909...
, and 1976
Copyright Act of 1976
The Copyright Act of 1976 is a United States copyright law and remains the primary basis of copyright law in the United States, as amended by several later enacted copyright provisions...
as precedent for retroactive extensions. One of the arguments supporting the act was the life expectancy has significantly increased among the human population since the 18th century, and therefore copyright law needed extending as well. However, the major argument for the act that carried over into the case was that the Constitution specified that Congress only needed to set time limits for copyright, the length of which was left to their discretion. Thus, as long as the limit is not "forever," any limit set by Congress can be deemed constitutional.
A key factor in the CTEA’s passage was a 1993 European Union (EU) directive instructing EU members to establish a baseline copyright term of life plus 70 years and to deny this longer term to the works of any non-EU country whose laws did not secure the same extended term
Rule of the shorter term
The rule of the shorter term, also called the comparison of terms, is a provision in international copyright treaties. The provision allows that signatory countries can limit the duration of copyright they grant to foreign works under national treatment, to at most the copyright term granted in the...
. By extending the baseline United States copyright term, Congress sought to ensure that American authors would receive the same copyright protection in Europe as their European counterparts.
The Supreme Court declined to address Lessig's contention that Lopez and Morrison offered precedent for enforcing the Copyright clause, and instead reiterated the lower court's reasoning that a retroactive term extension can satisfy the "limited times" provision in the copyright clause, as long as the extension itself is limited instead of perpetual. Furthermore, the Court refused to apply the proportionality standards of the Fourteenth Amendment
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v...
or the free-speech standards in the First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
to limit Congress's ability to confer copyrights for limited terms.
Justice Breyer
Stephen Breyer
Stephen Gerald Breyer is an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994, and known for his pragmatic approach to constitutional law, Breyer is generally associated with the more liberal side of the Court....
dissented, arguing that the CTEA amounted to a grant of perpetual copyright that undermined public interests. While the constitution grants Congress power to extend copyright terms in order to "promote the progress of science and useful arts," CTEA granted precedent to continually renew copyright terms making them virtually perpetual. Justice Breyer argued in his dissent that it is highly unlikely any artist will be more inclined to produce work knowing their great-grandchildren will receive royalties. With regard to retroactive copyright extension he viewed it foolish to apply the government's argument that income received from royalties allows artists to produce more work saying, "How will extension help today’s Noah Webster create new works 50 years after his death?"
In a separate dissenting opinion, Justice Stevens
John Paul Stevens
John Paul Stevens served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from December 19, 1975 until his retirement on June 29, 2010. At the time of his retirement, he was the oldest member of the Court and the third-longest serving justice in the Court's history...
also challenged the virtue of an individual reward, analyzing it from the perspective of patent law. He argued that the focus on compensation results only in “frustrating the legitimate members of the public who want to make use of it (a completed invention) in a free market.” Further, the compelling need to encourage creation is proportionally diminished once a work is already created. Yet while a formula pairing commercial viability to duration of protection may be said to produce more economically efficient results in respect of high technology inventions with shorter shelf-lives, the same perhaps cannot be said for certain forms of copyrighted works, for which the present value of expenditures relating to creation depend less on scientific equipment and research and development programmes and more on unquantifiable creativity.
Lessig expressed surprise that no decision was authored by Chief Justice Rehnquist or by any of the other four justices who supported the Lopez or Morrison decisions. Lessig later expressed regret that he based his argument on precedent rather than attempting to demonstrate that the weakening of the public domain would cause harm to the economic health of the country.
See also
- CopyrightCopyrightCopyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
- United States copyright lawUnited States copyright lawThe copyright law of the United States governs the legally enforceable rights of creative and artistic works under the laws of the United States.Copyright law in the United States is part of federal law, and is authorized by the U.S. Constitution...
- Intellectual property clause
- Public Domain Enhancement ActPublic Domain Enhancement ActThe Public Domain Enhancement Act , ) was a bill in the United States Congress which, if passed, would have added a tax for copyrighted works to retain their copyright status...
- Free CultureFree Culture (book)Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity is a book by law professor Lawrence Lessig that was released on the Internet under the Creative Commons Attribution/Non-commercial license on March 25, 2004."There has never been a...
Related cases
- Golan v. Holder
- Golan v. Ashcroft
- Kahle v. GonzalesKahle v. GonzalesKahle v. Gonzales is a First Amendment case that challenges the change in the copyright system of the United States from an opt-in system to an opt-out system....
External links
- Oral argument before the Supreme Court, in MP3 format (Transcript)
- Opinion of the Supreme Court, in MP3 format (Text)
- OpenLaw amicus briefs - also has other information including media coverage, etc.
- Text of the opinion, LII, Cornell University
- Text of the opinion, findlaw.com
- Links to various briefs filed in the case
- Symposium on Eldred from the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review
- A timeline of U.S. Copyright
- First-person narrative of the experience of attending the Oral Argument before the Supreme Court
- Lawrence Lessig's article about why Eldred lost