Court Upholds Copyright Extension | Copyright holders won a major court victory, while other companies seeking to distribute creative works in the public domain suffered a major setback.
The victory comes from a Supreme Court case, decided in January of 2003, that determined the | F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby was first published in 1925. Prior to the 1998 copyright extension, The Great Gatsby would have entered the public domain in 2001. Now, it will be protected until 2021. The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind both appeared in 1939. They would have entered the public domain in 2015. Now, the films are protected until 2035. | length of copyrights for music, films and books. By a vote of 7-2, the justices upheld a 20-year extension of copyrights. (Eldred v. Ashcroft)
Background: When Congress passed The Copyright Term Extension Act in 1998, thousands of popular works were about to enter the public domain. Big media companies, such as Walt Disney Co., and other copyright holders wanted to keep a rein on their property. If their works entered the public domain, they would have lost millions of dollars in royalties.
Disney was not the only major media company with an interest in the outcome of the case. AOL Time Warner, for example, knew that if the law was not upheld, its classics such as Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz, and Gone with the Wind would soon wind up in the public domain. The case was also crucial to smaller companies opposing the law, including the lead plaintiff, Eric Eldred, who wanted to distribute popular works over the Internet after they entered the public The Crux of the Issue
To see what happens when a famous work enters the public domain, one need only look at Frank Capra's Christmas classic It's a Wonderful Life.
In the 1970s, it was widely believed that the film was no longer protected by copyright, due to a failure to renew. It began to appear on television stations from coast to coast. Soon, any station that could get a print of the film could broadcast it without having to pay.
With VCRs growing in popularity, low-priced videotapes began to appear. The popularity of It's a Wonderful Life.soared and it achieved the status of a holiday icon.
The film was subsequently found to still be shielded by copyright, but its brief time without protection illustrates what the battle is about. When it was thought to be in the public domain, access to the film was much greater and far less expensive. At the same time, the studio that created it received no benefit from the distribution. Today, with the copyright protection back in place, the film is shown on only one U.S. television network and the copyright holders again receive royalties. | domain.
The Court was faced with deciding whether Congress had gone beyond its power in passing the extension. The Patent and Copyright Clause of the U.S. Constitution allows copyrights to be granted for "limited times." Opponents argued that Congress should not be allowed to lengthen existing copyrights because it would make the "limited times" restriction meaningless if protection is extended every time important works are about to enter the public domain.
In making the ruling, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the Supreme Court: "We are not at liberty to second-guess congressional determinations and policy judgments of this order, however debatable or arguably unwise they may be." The Court also found that the copyright extension did not violate the First Amendment protection of freedom of speech. The decision isn't a total loss for all small companies. No matter who the creators of copyrighted works are -- individuals, small businesses or large corporations -- they and their heirs will benefit from the extended protection.
Bottom line: If your company is in the business of creating copyrighted material, you will be protected for a very long time. Works created today will likely be protected into the next century. Even works copyrighted before 1978 are shielded for 95 years.
On the other hand, if your business is involved in distributing copyrighted material, you won't see any new works enter the public domain in the near future.
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