[FYI] Save the Orphans

["Axel H Horns" <axel.h.horns@gmx.net>]

<http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/001796.shtml>

Save the Orphans

So the Stanford Center for Internet and Society has filed an action 
on behalf of the Internet Archive and the Prelinger Archive 
challenging unconditional copyright restrictions that “orphan” works. 
Relying upon the silver lining in that dark cloud that was Eldred v. 
Ashcroft (“But when, as in this case, Congress has not altered the 
traditional contours of copyright protection, further First Amendment 
scrutiny is unnecessary”), this case challenges a fundamental change 
in the contour of copyright protection, and asks the district court 
to therefore provide “further First Amendment scrutiny.”

The fundamental change in the “traditional contours of copyright 
protection” is Congress’s abandonment (formally in 1976, but 
effectively only in 1992) of any formalities for copyrighted work, 
and in particular, the requirement that copyrights be renewed. In 
1992, Congress passed the BCIA, extending the term of all works in 
their initial term in 1964 through 1978. The Sonny Bono Act then 
extended those terms in 1998. The CTEA was thus the first statute in 
the history of the US generally to extend the term of copyrights that 
did not, or would not, pass through the filter of renewal.

The case is described on the CIS site. The complaint is linked here.

[...]


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