Lawrence Lessig, who argued before the Supremes in Eldred vs. Ashcroft<\/i>, gives his analysis of how the Court reacted — and, in so doing, describes the argument behind Eldred’s case very nicely indeed.<\/p>\n
The government then helped us immensely by simply confirming what we had said: under their theory of the case, there was no constitutional limit on Congress’s power to extend terms; it was always a matter of Congress’s discretion. Congress could perpetually extend existing terms; it could even extend a copyright to works within the public domain.
\nThe Court clearly did not like this answer. They had bought the idea that the Constitution intended there to be a limit; the government’s interpretation meant that this was a limit that was solely a matter of legislative grace. (Compare: “Under our written Constitution the limitation of congressional authority is not solely a matter of legislative grace.”) They were not comfortable with the idea that they would simply say that though the constitution expressly limits Congress’s power, it is Congress that gets to say what that limit is.<\/p>\n
Y’know, once upon a time, I seriously considered becoming a lawyer? I love this stuff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lawrence Lessig, who argued before the Supremes in Eldred vs. Ashcroft, gives his analysis of how the Court reacted — and, in so doing, describes the argument behind Eldred’s case…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-moguls"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3670,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/10\/09\/free_mickey.html","url_meta":{"origin":3632,"position":0},"title":"Free Mickey!","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 9-Oct-02 1:08pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I am a believer in free enterprise. I am a believer in Intellectual Property. I am a believer in the principle of copyright, as laid out in the Constitution. Individuals,...","rel":"","context":"In "Disney\/Pixar"","block_context":{"text":"Disney\/Pixar","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/disney"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6302,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/09\/23\/playing_with_ir.html","url_meta":{"origin":3632,"position":1},"title":"Playing with ire","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 23-Sep-04 6:43pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I protested this when it originally came up, and I'm deeply irked that the politicians didn't listen to me. The House passed legislation Thursday that would prevent the Supreme Court...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31875,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/12\/20\/free-mickey-mouse-in-2018.html","url_meta":{"origin":3632,"position":2},"title":"Free Mickey Mouse (in 2018)!","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 20-Dec-12 2:49pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Interesting article about how Big Content is getting worried enough about copyright skepticism that it's beginning to pay for \"law articles\" advancing the idea that copyright is a natural right (not just something \"to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts\" as the US Constitution has it), that intellectual\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13595,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/11\/06\/fighting_proposition_8.html","url_meta":{"origin":3632,"position":3},"title":"Fighting Proposition 8","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 6-Nov-08 3:41pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The battle against Prop. 8, which amended the California Constitution to ban gay marriage, is not over. From Gloria Allred (emphasis mine): On May 15, 2008, after we waged a...","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2008"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2008","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2008"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":22292,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/08\/21\/rick-perry-loves-the-constitution-except-where-its-evil.html","url_meta":{"origin":3632,"position":4},"title":"Rick Perry loves the Constitution, except where it’s EVIL!","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 21-Aug-11 7:12pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The US Constitution is a great thing. It's not perfect, by any means -- it has been amended over a couple dozen times, but then, that's not bad for over two centuries track record. So I don't object to revisions to the Constitution per se, but I object to ones\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2012","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2012"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/rick-perry-thumbs-up.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/rick-perry-thumbs-up.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/rick-perry-thumbs-up.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/rick-perry-thumbs-up.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/rick-perry-thumbs-up.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":32610,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/23\/concealed-carry-not-a-constitutional-right.html","url_meta":{"origin":3632,"position":5},"title":"Concealed Carry not a constitutional right?","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 23-Feb-13 3:04pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Makes sense to me, though the federal courts have been quite inconsistent about it (and an appeals court just ruled that blanket banning of it was unconstitutional).Reshared post from +The Denver Post\"We conclude that the carrying of concealed firearms is not protected by the Second Amendment . . .\" Justice\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3632\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}