Re: Constitutional Challenge to (C) Code

On 98-03-30, Robert E. Smith <cosmith[_at_]ash.palni.edu> wrote:
>
> What would be the likelyhood of success for a Constitutional Challenge
> of the Duration of Copyright under both current and pending US Code?
> It seems to me that life plus fifty-seventy years does not "promote the
> progress of science and the useful arts by securing for limited time."
> I do not understand how a lifetime beyond my lifetime is limited and how
> it guarentees my right to my work when I am dead. Class action, anyone?

I've heard this idea (below) of a possible challenge to the constitutionality of a copyright term extension mentioned occasionally on this and other lists. Given the current urgency about S. 505 (Copyright Term Ext. Act ), what could be done to make some very preliminary steps toward that? Perhaps if the proponents of the bill heard about that they might back down? Since I am not a lawyer, I'd welcome any further discussion about this.

Another idea: how might they react if a suggestion were made to amend S. 505 to add:

(1) a provision that in the future, increasing the term of copyright would require a 2/3 vote of both houses? (The Republicans are suggesting that now re tax increases) and

(2) a provision that this extension applies only prospectively, to works created from now on, if indeed it is truly to provide an incentive for creative ideas? Presumably works that have already been created do not need the existence of further incentive. (This latter idea is raised on Dennis Karjala's copyright extension webite, http://www.public.asu.edu/~dkarjala/)

Karen LeFevre
<kblwrite[_at_]aol.com> Received on Mon Mar 30 1998 - 16:02:40 GMT