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Re: [dvd-discuss] O'Connor quoted at USA Today from Eldred oral argument



On Fri, Oct 11, 2002 at 09:14:31AM -0400, Peter D. Junger wrote:
> : > Section 9, paragraph 3: "No bill of 
> : > attainder or ex post facto Law
> : > shall be passed."
> : 
> : It doesn't apply to making future actions (e.g. publication
> : of _The_Jungle_Book_ less than 70 years after Kipling's death)
> : illegal.
> 
> That is correct, but only because in CALDER v. BULL, 3 U.S. 38
> (1798) the Supreme Court held that the ``ex post facto'' clause
> only applies to penal (which pretty much means ``criminal'') 
> cases.

Aren't there criminal provisions in copyright law?

Also what about this for an unlikely but possible hypothetical scenario:

Some rich eccentric loads up a satellite with works whose copyright has not
yet expired and programs it to beam a continuous stream of these works to
Earth as their copyright terms expire. The satellite is designed to operate
autonomously once launched and is not fitted with any equipment for
receiving signals of any kind, so can't be provided with updated expiry
times.

Would something like this be considered legal without a retroactive
extension beging passed in the time between the device's launch and the
expiry of the first copyright in its memory? If so what would be the
situation if a retroactive extension were passed following its launch?

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