NCSU Libraries Focus Online

Volume 23 number 1 - Fall 2002

By Peggy Hoon, Scholarly Communication Center

The United States established its first copyright statute in 1790, which limited an author's copyright monopoly to fourteen years. This limited monopoly was deemed sufficient incentive for authors to create and thereby accomplish the cardinal purpose of copyright as set forth in the Constitution: "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts."

Since then, the United States Congress has extended copyright terms eleven times in the past forty years. The most recent extension was the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA). The 1998 act extended copyright protection from fifty to seventy years after an author's death. The CTEA also extended the protection of works-for-hire made by corporations to ninety-five years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter. In fact, the act's extended protection applied to all works for which the copyright had not expired, meaning that no published works will enter the public domain for the next twenty years.

In 1999 a lawsuit was filed challenging the constitutionality of the CTEA. A group of plaintiffs led by Eric Eldred, who republishes public domain literary works on the Web, contends that Congress exceeded its constitutional authority by extending copyright terms, particularly retrospectively. The United States Supreme Court agreed this past spring to hear the case. Oral argument is scheduled for October 9, 2002.

Because of the precedential nature of this case, the NCSU Libraries hosted a talk by Dennis Karjala, professor of law and the Willard Pedrick Distinguished Research Scholar at Arizona State University. Karjala, a copyright expert, spoke to a standing-room-only audience of faculty, staff, librarians, and students on April 12, 2002. His talk, "Is Forever (Minus One Day) a 'Limited Time'? Eldred v. Ashcroft and the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998," proved lively and informative.

Karjala, an opponent of term extension, analyzed the constitutional challenge to the CTEA and the significance of the Supreme Court's decision in what is arguably the "most important copyright case that has ever come before [the court]." As Karjala noted, the CTEA cannot provide any incentive to create for authors of works already in existence--works whose "limited time" of protection should be the copyright term available at the time the work was made. Therefore, should the Supreme Court invalidate CTEA with respect to its extended protection of existing works, it is unlikely that anyone would push term extension legislation restricted to future works.

For those who could not attend and would like to hear Karjala's presentation, the library videotaped the talk, and the tape may be checked out for individual viewing. Additionally, the Libraries may be offering a public viewing this fall. Please check the Libraries' Scholarly Communication Center Web site at http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/scc/ later this fall for specific times and dates and for updates about this important case.