Wiki143:School and university projects/Open Source Culture/Eldred

Eldred v. Ashcroft, 239 F.3d 372 (2003)

In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) was constitutional. The 7-2 decision found that retroactive copyright extension was legal and that a copyright extension was not contrary to the Copyright Clause's idea of securing author's rights for limited times. This was not the first copyright extension act - there were extensions in the 1790, 1831, 1909, and 1976 acts as well. The decision is controversial because constant extensions may effectively grant a perpetual right over a work regardless of how limited the times are (when each copyright is set to end, it can be extended via legislation