[dvd-discuss] Eldred v. Ashcroft Accepted for Review by SCOTUS

[John Schulien <jms(at)uic.edu>]

> What's with the headline: "Supreme Court to Intervene in Internet
> Copyright Dispute"? Eldred may publish on the Internet, but the legal
> questions have nothing to do with the internet.

True, but practically, this case will decide the future of
peer-to-peer.  If Eldred prevails, an enormous volume
of older works -- mostly songs and movies -- will become
legally available for Napster-type file-sharing.

Dead-tree and silver-disc publishing, distribution, and
marketing  of public domain works is an expensive, difficult
undertaking -- very hard to pull off while making a profit.

However, as Napster showed, there are plenty of people
who will make an incremental contribution of their personal
favorite works, without expectation of profit.

Internet  publishing  of public domain works is a easy as
getting DSL and installing a web server on your PC.
As Napster showed, the internet is the future of
non-commercial distribution of works.

So yes, this case isn't directly internet related, but the
practical implications of the re-introduction of copyright
expiration fall mostly in the realm of the internet.