ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline
Volume 12, Number 5
January 16, 2003

In This Issue:  U.S. Supreme Court rules on constitutionality of Copyright Term Extension Act

In a decision disappointing to the library community, the U.S. Supreme Court on January 15 upheld, by a vote of 7 to 2, the constitutionality of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.  The Act, passed by Congress in 1998, extends the copyright term for an additional 20 years, so that a commercially-produced work is now governed by the provisions of copyright law for 95 years; for an individual's work the term is "life of the author" plus 70 years. 

In Eldred v. Ashcroft, the Court held that Congress acted within its authority under the Constitution's Copyright Clause when it expanded the term of protection.  The Court held that it "was not at liberty to second-guess congressional determinations and policy judgments of this order, however debatable or arguably unwise they may be."   The Court also rejected arguments against the Act under the First Amendment.  In doing so, Justice Ginsburg, writing for the majority, noted that the Copyright Act's "fair use" provision provides a "built-in" First Amendment accommodation.  Two justices, Stevens and Breyer, filed separate dissenting opinions in which they expressed strong disagreement with the majority's holding.  

The opinions can be found at the following sites:  
Majority opinion by Justice Ginsburg:
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/lessig/blog/archives/01-618o.pdf 
Dissent by Justice Stevens:
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/lessig/blog/archives/01-618d.pdf 
Dissent by Justice Breyer:
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/lessig/blog/archives/01-618d1.pdf 

The five major national library associations and ten other groups had submitted an amici curiae (friend of the court) brief in support of the challengers to the Act.  More about the case can be found on http://www.ala.org/washoff/eldred.html and http://www.arl.org/info/frn/copy/ctcases.html.




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