Category Archives: eldred.cc

Jesse Walker, who has written many wonderful things for Reason, and lots of great things about the harms to copyright extension, has a brilliant piece interviewing Mickey Mouse about the result in Eldred. My first laugh in 52 hours. Continue reading →

My inbox is a testament to the kindness of strangers. Thank you. Many ask, is there anything more that could be done?

The easy answer is no. The Supreme Court has ruled that Congress has the power perpetually to extend the terms of existing copyrights. This brief “experiment with the public domain,” as the NYT eloquently put it, is over. In twenty years, we can expect terms will be extended again. There is no good reason to expect anything different.

The hard answer is, well, yes, there is always the possibility of an amendment, except that an amendment would be impossibly hard. Article V of the Constitution maps two paths to an amendment. (1) is for Congress to propose an amendment (which would not happen here — ever); (2) is for the state legislatures to call for a “convention” which may propose amendments. In either case, amendments must be ratified by 3/4s of the states.

The second path has never been followed. People are afraid of it because the convention could in principle propose any amendment at all. As 3/4s of the states must ratify any amendment, that doesn’t seem terribly dangerous to me. But clearly, it would take a massive campaign to march through the states to succeed in getting such a proposal passed.

One kind soul asks, “would you be willing to work to amend the constitution.” If there were a commitment of sufficient resources to make the campaign real, obviously yes. Impossibly difficult tasks seems my calling these days. I’d be happy to become Mr., rather than Professor, Lessig, if there were a good reason to believe such a campaign could be supported.

But short of the impossible, there are many battles yet to be won. The opinion of the Court gives no support to restoring copyrights once expired. That means the challenges in Golan and related cases survives. And, as Jack Balkin forcefully argues, Eldred does nicely frame the unconstitutionality in the DMCA.

More importantly, there is a political campaign that must now be waged. The many organizations that have been fighting these issues have done an extraordinary job getting people to see what’s at stake. That battle has only begun. My hero Siva (which is easier to spell than Vaidhyanathan) has a great piece on Salon on just this point. And Bill Moyers has a piece on PBS tonight that will do lots to help others to see.

I, meanwhile, will be answering email. I should have that finished before the next Sonny Bono Act. Continue reading →

It is the middle of the night. Sleep is awol, scared off by this question that won’t stop pestering me: Is there a principle here? Is there a way to read these opinions as consistent with a principle? (Updated) Continue reading →

So I’ve got to go get onto a plane to go to my least favorite city (DC). My inbox is filling with kind emails from friends. Also with a few of a different flavor. It’s my nature to identify most closely with those of the different flavor. David Gossett at the law firm of Mayer Brown wrote Declan, “Larry lost Eldred, 7-2.” Yes, no matter what is said, that is how I will always view this case. The constitutional question is not even close. To have failed to get the Court to see it is my failing.

It has often been said that movements gain by losing in the Supreme Court. Some feminists say it would have been better to lose Roe, because that would have built a movement in response. I have often wondered whether it would ever be possible to lose a case and yet smell victory in the defeat. I’m not yet convinced it’s possible. But if there is any good that might come from my loss, let it be the anger and passion that now gets to swell against the unchecked power that the Supreme Court has said Congress has. When the Free Software Foundation, Intel, Phillis Schlafly, Milton Friedman, Ronald Coase, Kenneth Arrow, Brewster Kahle, and hundreds of creators and innovators all stand on one side saying, “this makes no sense,” then it makes no sense. Let that be enough to move people to do something about it. Our courts will not.

I will always be grateful to Eric Eldred, and our other plaintiffs, for putting his faith in this case. I will always regret not being able to meet that faith with the success it deserves.

What the Framers of our constitution did is not enough. We must do more. Continue reading →

There were three opinions. The majority was written by Justice Ginsburg. Justice
Stevens wrote a dissent, as did Justice Breyer. Continue reading →

I had never looked this up, but thanks to “thumbtacks” for sending this. If the Sonny Bono Act is unconstitutional, then “Happy Birthday!” will be free! Continue reading →

There’s a very interesting article in the Times (registration blah blah blah) about a new push in Europe to increase copyright terms. Let’s remember the sequence here. Germany increased its terms to compensate for WWII. The EU then increased its terms to match Germany. The US then increased its terms to “harmonize” with the EU. That was the Sonny Bono Act. But of course, the “harmony” of the Sonny Bono Act was like some of the worst of the Bono and Cher acts — disharmony. (For a chart showing how the Sonny Bono Act actually increased disharmony between US and EU terms, see Dennis Karjala’s page). So to respond to the disharmony caused by the Sonny Bono Act, now Europe is calling for another increase in their term. Japan too is doing the same.

Jason Schultz’s work shows clearly what we’ve been arguing for a very long time: Longer terms lock up much more than it could ever benefit. This spiral of increasing terms will mean that less will be available, not more. Obviously, there is a world of work to do before this message is understood. Continue reading →

Richard Koman has written a great article about Brewster’s brilliant bookmobile. Continue reading →

Two weeks ago at the Creative Commons launch, I tried to sell the virtues of building rather than suing. The reality is that we need to do both. As Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society has announced, we filed a lawsuit last week to defend the right of Emily Somma to distribute a children’s book that builds upon the story of Peter Pan.

Peter Pan was created by Scottish playwright James M. Barrie (1860-1937). The character was born in a 1902 book called The Little White Bird and then developed into the play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, in 1904. In 1906, the section of The Little White Bird that originated Peter Pan was published separately as a book called Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. Finally, Barrie turned his highly successful play into a book called Peter and Wendy in 1911.

All these works have entered the public domain in America. But because Barrie continued to produce works based on the Peter Pan story, the holders of those copyrights claim that there can be no derivative works using the Peter Pan character so long as those later works remain under copyright. (In England, by special law, the copyright for Barrie’s work is perpetual). Thus, the holders of Barrie’s copyright claim a perpetual right to control derivative works based on Peter Pan, even though the original work passed into the public domain.

Emily Somma, a Canadian, has written a wonderful children’s book, After the Rain, that uses some of the Peter Pan story, but for very different ends. Peter Pan, you might remember, is afraid of growing up. In Somma’s story, children rescue Peter Pan from this fear. Thus, like the best of derivative works, Somma’s story builds on the past, but does something different with it.

Yet Somma is now threatened with a legal action in the United States if she distributes her book in the United States, even though her work plainly builds on work that is in the public domain. This, we believe, is wrong. It is just one example of an important class of cases where current copyright holders demand the right to control the use of work that is in the public domain just because their work builds upon work that is now in the public domain.

Stay tuned for more news, or tune your reader to the CIS RSS feed for updates on the case. Peter Pan is already free. It’s time the law (and lawyers) to recognize it. Continue reading →

This is my co-counsel in the case, Jonathan Zittrain. An obvious mole. (A mouse like mole actually). No assessment of damage done yet. Continue reading →