As you may have seen, the Supreme Court rendered its decision (1 majority, 2 dissenting) in Eldred v. Ashcroft. The decision was 7-2 in favor of the government. This means that according to the Supreme Court, the Congress acted constitutionally in extending the terms of Copyright. Now any material that is copyrighted is protected for the life of the creator plus 70 more years. Aaaack! Can you believe this! Any way, this law (the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act or Mickey Mouse Protection Act) has the effect of stiffiling creativity. Lawrence Lessig was the lawyer who argued this case in front of the Supremes and he seems to be taking it pretty badly. I guess if I could say one thing to him it would be, "You fought the good fight. You fought fair. You did good. You still lost, but that's OK. Keep fighting the good fight. Keep fighiting fair. Keep doing good. You will win." Also, Lawrence is one of the founders of the very cool Creative Commons project.
Posted by Noah Brimhall at January 16, 2003 01:37 PM