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Supreme Court Lets Copyright Extension Stand
The U.S. Supreme Court in January upheld by 7 to 2 a twenty-year extension to existing and future copyrights granted by Congress in 1998. Petitioners in Eldred v. Ashcroft, many of whom were small publishers specializing in reprints, argued that the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act violated the Constitution's intention that the duration of copyright protection be limited in order to "promote the progress of science." They said that by keeping materials out of the public domain, the law benefits large corporations at the expense of the public.
In dissenting opinions, two justices criticized the extension, which provides copyright protection for the work of an individual for the duration of his or her life plus seventy years and for work created by an organization or corporation for ninety-five years. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the Court had failed to "protect the public interest in free access to the products of inventive and artistic genius" and "virtually ignor[ed] the central purpose" of the Constitution's copyright clause.
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