Racing Against Time
By Lawrence Lessig
CIO Insight
December 12, 2002
SLIS Summary
The 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act extended the term of existing and future copyrights by 20 years--from 75 to 95 years for corporate works, and life plus 50 to 70 years for literary works by authors. This was the eleventh extension in 40 years. Its effect is to stop, or "toll" the passage of copyrighted work into the public domain.
Repeated extensions of copyright terms harm Internet growth. They make it harder for content to be deployed on the Internet and increase the cost of innovation. In a constitutional challenge to the Sonny Bono Act, argued before the Supreme Court in October, the Internet was offered as Exhibit 1 against the statute. It was argued that the Internet makes it critically important that copyright terms actually be "limited" per the U.S. Constitution.
Copyright law is crucial to spur creative work. However the law affects creativity differently in cyberspace. Many argue that cyberspace weakens copyright protection, since digital copies are so easy to make and distribution costs are so low. However the Internet can likewise strengthen the power of copyright owners far beyond anything imagined.
For example, consider a book and an e-book. When a physical book is published, copyright law controls printed and distribution. Copyright assures that the copyright holder has an "exclusive right" to the profits from the initial sale of the book. Once the book is out there, however, ordinary uses of it are untouched by the law. Copyright law doesn't care if you read the book 10 times, if you buy a copy at a local used bookstore, or borrow it from a library. These are not "fair uses" of copyrighted works, simply unregulated ones.
E-Book Regulation
On the Internet, copyright law regulates the life of an e-book more than the life of a physical book. Every action on a digital network produces a copy, and every copy is within the reach of copyright law. Every use of a copyrighted work in cyberspace amounts to a copyright event. To give an e-book to a friend involves a copy, to borrow an e-book from an Internet library involves a copy, and to have the computer read an e-book aloud involves making a copy. All of these actions then, unregulated in the physical world, are regulated by copyright law in the digital one.
For example, if a museum wants to create an Internet exhibit on the New Deal, including pictures and songs, it must check the copyright status for all the material and get permission from copyright owners for another 20 years. If a film restorer wanted to digitize currently decaying nitrate-based films from the 1930s, he or she would have locate all the owners of the different copyrights bundled into a single film.
An additional 20 years of protection means an additional 20 years of licensing before content can be used on the Internet. Imagine if used bookstores had to pay royalties each time a used book was sold. Imagine a world where you had to sign a contract before you were allowed to link to another site on the World Wide Web. And imagine having to deal with copyright term extensions for works created in 1923. You'd need to get the permission of unknown and untraceable owners before you could put content on the Web.
Copyright Law
Copyright law was designed to create incentives that "promote...Progress." Only 2 percent of the work copyrighted during the first 20 years affected by the Sonny Bono Act has any continuing commercial life. Only that 2 percent is benefited by the extension, while the remaining 98 percent still under copyright is stymied by legal regulation. These extensions only harm the creative process, especially when current technology can create some many more creators.
Shorter terms would increase the lawyer-free zone of the public domain. They would lower the costs to companies that want to distribute and build upon the public domain and promote competition in film and music provider. This competition would increase demand for bandwidth, which would fuel Internet growth.
The founding fathers didn't know about the Internet. They had no clue about its opportunities for creativity. They did, however, commit our tradition to a rule that requires that copyright terms be limited. Now that technology has given that power to anyone with a T1, the wisdom in this plan is obvious.
About the Author
Lawrence Lessig is a professor of law at Stanford Law School and the author of The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World and Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace.
Read the full article
www.cioinsight.com/article2/0,3959,762935,00.asp
Related SLIS News Story
A Bookworm's Battle: Eric Eldred, inspired by the Internet, takes a copyright case to the Supreme Court
By Andrea L. Foster
The Chronicle of Higher Education
October 25, 2002
Posted December 13, 2002