View source for Recent Term Extensions Controversies (Eldred v. Ashcroft)

== Recent Term Extensions Controversies (Eldred v. Ashcroft) ==

A recent extension of the copyright term in the United States was justified in part by a desire to harmonize the duration of US copyright protection with that of other countries.   The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 (CTEA) went much further than necessary for that purpose, however.  For instance, the law was retroactive -- in the sense that works that had been published before the law was enacted, but were still under copyright, were granted an additional twenty years of copyright protection.  The net effect of this legislation was to prevent works that would have fallen out of copyright protection and into the public domain on January 1, 1998 from doing so for another twenty years.  

In Eldred v. Ashcroft, the petitioner contended that the retroactive aspect of the statute was unconstitutional -- (a) because it exceeded Congress’ constitutional 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”; (b) because it did not have the “rational basis” required of all legislation by the Constitution; and (c) because it represented an unjustified curtailment of freedom of speech in violation of the First Amendment.  By a vote of 7 to 2, the United States Supreme Court rejected all three arguments.  As to the first, the Court pointed out the statute provided a time limit, even if a future Congress could conceivably extend that limit.  As to the second argument, the court held that the statute did have a sufficient rational basis because the Berne Convention requires that a copyright is protected only for the term fixed in the country of origin of the work.  Thus, the CETA shielded US authors against  discrimination in foreign countries that had longer copyright terms.  Finally, the Court concluded that copyright law contains built-in protections for freedom of speech including the distinction between uncopyrightable ideas and copyrightable expression, and the fair use doctrine.