LA Times on the copyright case before the Supreme Court:

The Supreme Court for the first time this week will take a
hard look at one of the most important powers in the original
Constitution, under which Congress "for limited times" can give authors,
inventors and other creators the exclusive right to their works.

How the court reads that phrase will decide who owns and controls the
films, books and songs that were created in the 1920s and 1930s.
"This is about the movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood, and the
beginnings of American popular music," said Tyler T. Ochoa, a copyright
law expert at Whittier Law School. "There are literally billions of
dollars at stake here."

This big-money Hollywood fight is not being waged by agents and
lobbyists. Instead, it involves historians and scholars of "intellectual
property" law. They say that Congress has lost sight of the original
purpose of the Constitution's copyright clause.

"Their hope was that the government might help spur learning and
innovation," said Stanford Law School professor Lawrence Lessig,
referring to the authors of the Constitution.

"Monopolies were to be allowed, but only 'to promote progress' ... and
only for limited times," he said in his brief to the court.

In the first copyright and patent acts, Congress in 1790 gave authors
and inventors a 14-year monopoly. After 14 years, living authors could
seek a 14-year extension of their copyrights, for a total of 28 years.

However, since the advent of the film industry in the 20th century,
Congress has extended the terms of copyrights repeatedly. In 1998,
Congress with little debate added 20 years to all copyrights. Now, works
created by groups of people, such as films, are protected for 95 years.
Copyrights for individual works, including books, extend for 70 years
after the author's death.

As a result, books, magazines, poems, films and songs that appeared in
the 1920s remain under copyright protection, even if these works are
long forgotten and have no commercial value.

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