RE: The Era of Perpetual Copyright

On Tuesday, January 21, 2003 2:57 PM, Ralph D. Clifford [SMTP:rclifford[_at_]snesl.edu] wrote:
><snip>

> I'm not sure this would be true. As the Court accepts copyrights as a
> property right, it is not so clear that Congress can undo what it has
done.
> If the extension were repealed, I'm sure that it would be challenged by
> current copyright holders on the grounds that the property rights of the
> copyright owner were taken by the repeal. Consequently, the argument
would
> go, the copyright owners are owed compensation under the 5th Amendment's
> Taking Clause. My prediction of the challenge is that it would be
sustained
> by the Supreme Court as this Court has been quite receptive to taking
> challenges.

A similar argument was used by the European Commission when it decided to harmonise copyright terms upwards across the European Union in the early 1990s. Then, only Germany enjoyed a 70-year pma term. The Treaty of Rome (now the European Treaty) has a similar ban on uncompensated taking.

In the USA, transatlantic harmonisation was a powerful economic and political argument in favour of CTEA.

Edward Barrow
New Media Copyright Consultant
http://www.copyweb.co.uk/
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