[FYI] The dead poets society - The copyright term and the public domain

[Kristian Koehntopp <kris@koehntopp.de>]

http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue8_6/rimmer/index.html

 
The dead poets society: The copyright term and the public domain
by Matthew Rimmer

In a victory for corporate control of cultural heritage, the
Supreme Court of the United States has rejected a constitutional
challenge to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act 1998
(U.S.) by a majority of seven to two. This paper evaluates the
litigation in terms of policy debate in a number of discourses -
history, intellectual property law, constitutional law and
freedom of speech, cultural heritage, economics and competition
policy, and international trade. It argues that the extension of
the copyright term will inhibit the dissemination of cultural
works through the use of new technologies - such as Eric
Eldred's Eldritch Press and Project Gutenberg. It concludes that
there is a need to resist the attempts of copyright owners to
establish the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act 1998
(U.S.) as an international model for other jurisdictions - such
as Australia.

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