Eldred v. Ashcroft

I had the good fortune to attend the Va. State Bar's fall IP seminar this weekend, and to hear Wendy Seltzer, a fellow at the Berkman Center and a contributor to Eldred's case, discuss the arguments to be considered by the Supreme Court next week.

Although I found Professor Seltzer's presentation very enlightening, I was a bit surprised to realize that the Eldred case (at least as framed by the questions accepted for cert) is not about the extension of copyright in general, but about the extension of copyright for works that have already been created.

Although I certainly see the logic in the argument (after all, the author of a work that has already been created certainly does not need further incentive to create that work), the fact that Congress has, in fact, extended the copyright of existing works on any number of occasions makes me think that this particular approach is unlikely to succeed. Prof. Seltzer's argument that the previous extensions involved a balancing of interests of the author and the public (whereas the current extension attempts no such balance) makes sense from a political perspective, but I'm uncertain as to whether that distinction matters as far as the legality of the copyright term extension is concerned.

Any thoughts/comments?

Kevin Grierson

Kevin W. Grierson
Willcox & Savage, P.C.
1800 Bank of America Center
One Commercial Place
Norfolk, Virginia 23510

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http://www.wilsav.com Received on Mon Sep 30 2002 - 14:24:57 GMT