Retiring Justice John Paul Stevens's Impact On IP Law 106
Pickens writes "Corporate Counsel recounts the profound legacy of Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, author of the majority opinion in what some consider the most important copyright ruling of all time — the 1984 Betamax decision (Sony v. Universal City Studios) that established that consumers have a personal 'fair use' right to make copies of copyrighted material for non-commercial use. Justice Stevens's contribution to the ultimate decision in Betamax extended well beyond writing the opinion. The justices' initial debates in the case make it clear that Stevens was the only one of the nine (PDF) who believed that the 'fair use' doctrine gave consumers a right to make personal copies of copyrighted content for home use. It was his negotiating skill that pulled together the five-vote majority allowing home video recorders to be sold and used without interference from copyright holders. An IP litigator is quoted: 'The ruling that making a single copy for yourself of a broadcast movie was fair use ... that was truly huge, and was a point on which the court was deeply divided.' So the next time you're TiVo-ing an episode of your favorite show, remember to give a quick thanks to Justice Stevens; and let's hope that whoever President Obama appoints to replace him will follow in Stevens's footsteps and defend Fair Use, not corporate copyright interests." The review also touches on Stevens's "patent skepticism," which may be on display when the court delivers its eagerly awaited Bilski ruling.
Right (Score:2, Funny)
"and let's hope that whoever President Obama appoints to replace him will follow in Stevens's footsteps and defend Fair Use, not corporate copyright interests."
That's what's going to happen.
Re:Right (Score:5, Informative)
"Golden Boy" Obama has surrounded himself with ex-lawyers from the RIAA / MPAA. Good luck on getting a good appointee.
http://www.osnews.com/story/23002/Obama_Sides_with_RIAA_MPAA_Backs_ACTA [osnews.com]
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Who exactly are you quoting when you say "Golden boy"?
Indeed (Score:1, Informative)
FTA: let's hope that whoever President Obama appoints to replace him will follow in Stevens's footsteps and defend Fair Use, not corporate copyright interests.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!
I needed a good laugh. Thanks.
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You're right, he did surround himself with a lot of former intellectual property "advocates". It's disappointing.
On the other hand, he's had an amazing [politifact.com] first year.
Re:Right (Score:4, Insightful)
That website is bullshit. Close gitmo in progress? Gitmo is not closed, or probably even closing. He issued an executive order saying it should be closed, but it can be reversed by the next president, just as Bush did after Clinton apparently began the process of closing the facility. Obama has actually done nothing to prevent Gitmo from continuing to operate. And there's no mention of how Obama has already flopped on his promises WRT withdrawal of troops, certainly not in the top 25 where it belongs, given that it was one of the major campaign promises. I can come up with websites which paint him as an asshole, but they'd prove only as much as your "citation". Obama's appointments tell the story that must be attended to. Processes he "starts" can be finished by someone else — in a variety of ways. But some of the appointments will outlast him and affect our lives long after he's no longer a figure in American politics.
Obama is the new boss, same as the old boss, and he's not even the boss. He's beholden to his constituents, the real ones; not the American people, but the American corporations. Until we take the rights of people away from corporations, we will be serving our corporate masters with our every act.
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You are right on every count, except the last one I think. While I fully agree that corporations cannot be treated as people for most purposes (since they can't suffer the same fates), if we took away those rights I don't think it would affect them as overlords at all (though it would likely have other benefits for us as a society). Corporations don't do anything, people do things on their behalf. They would continue to do those things, since what makes them powerful is their money (and potential for money,
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Corporations don't do anything, people do things on their behalf.
here you have stated in a nutshell what is wrong with the idea of a corporation. a corporation is a fiction and thus it cannot do anything. a human must take the action, even if that action is to create an automated system which will take the action on their behalf. rights are thus separated from responsibilities; humans take the responsibility while corporations get the rights. if corporations are to have rights without the idea being a perversion of the very idea of rights, they must also take responsibil
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People get all sorts of mad over the "corporations as people" thing, because it sounds terrible on the front of it. The most recent addition to this argument, though, deserves a closer look than most people give it.
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission was, at its core, about Citizens United being unable to promote and advertise its documentary, Hillary: The Movie. Now, you may not know, but Citizens United is a non-profit political organization. Under the McCain-Feingold Act, they were prohibited
Re:Right (Score:4, Insightful)
The majority of the Senate voted to block funds necessary to transfer detainees. The Republicans then made a huge deal about it and turned into a political nightmare. Obama has pressed forward with preparing facilities in the US and on trials, regardless.
Also, do I need to post sources or are we just ignoring those now? Here's the senate block [breitbart.com], here's Obama pressing forward with a memorandum [whitehouse.gov].
Given how quickly almost all of the Senate blocked the transfer of prisoners, I think he's doing quite well. Unfortunately, the President can scoff at Congress' decisions only to a certain degree, and it takes a lot of legal wrangling to get around Congress denying funding for transferring inmates.
Re:Right (Score:4, Insightful)
"The majority of the Senate voted to block funds necessary to transfer detainees. The Republicans then made a huge deal about it and turned into a political nightmare. Obama has pressed forward with preparing facilities in the US and on trials, regardless."
Barack Obama could effectively close Gitmo right now if he wanted to, with the stroke of a pen. He could sign an executive order and move those terrorists anywhere he wanted today. That doesn't require an act of Congress. What he wants is credit for doing it only if Congress gives him cover. In other words, he wants to do it if it's safe politically.
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And how, pray tell, would he get them off the island of Cuba if Congress denies him the funds?
Checks and balances can be a bitch sometimes. In this case, the Se
Re:Right (Score:4, Insightful)
Checks and balances can be a bitch sometimes. In this case, the Senate refused to write the check.
I didn't say it wouldn't cost money somewhere else. But if he wanted to, he could pick up a phone and tell the Joint Chiefs "Look, I want them all on a C-17 headed somewhere else in 6 hours. Make it happen". And it would.
Are you seriously... seriously going to argue that this hasn't happened because of cost?
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No, because of politics. I think that's plain to see, when 96 Senators voted against funding the transfer of Gitmo detainees.
Ok, so he puts them on a plane, where does he send them? That's what the funding was for.
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The American people voted for Obama. The corporations didn't do the voting (unless the election was badly Diebolded).
Most of the rest voted for McCain.
The sheep just keep voting between 2 wolves to eat them. 98.5% of the votes went to the two wolves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2008#Nationwide_results [wikipedia.org]
If they don't like it, they should vote for someone else different.
If they are happy with it, Democracy is working as designed.
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Obama has actually done nothing to prevent Gitmo from continuing to operate
Ignoring for a moment that basic human rights violations should be enough to keep Gitmo from reopening, do we really want a government that can say "we're going to do this thing, and there's no reversing this decision, ever."?
Good job he's there for Bilski (Score:5, Insightful)
It's probably a very good thing that Bilski is being written while Stevens is still there. He was involved in all the previous subject matter cases, and the Supreme Court never said software was patentable in those. They also said a bunch of useful things like that math isn't patentable, and that putting instructions such as software onto a computer was a "mere clerical" act.
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Sounds like my kind of judge. (:
Eldred v Ashcroft (Score:5, Informative)
generation shift (Score:5, Insightful)
There's something funny about lamenting the resignation of an 89 year old judge because he's the only one that gets modern technology... :-)
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The technology is really the side issue - it's individualism vs. corporatism.
The only IP law that I care about is... (Score:2, Insightful)
As a network analyst, I care more about the IP laws as defined by http://www.ietf.org/rfc.html [ietf.org]
(TCP/IP in case anyone missed the joke)
Wouldn't it be great if real life laws were codified by RFCs?
Re:The only IP law that I care about is... (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, I didn't miss the joke. I'm still a little fuzzy on the humor.
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Real laws by "requests for comments" (RFC)? That sounds like either despotism (by pimply CS grad students) or anarchy. I don't care for either.
As much as current democracy/Congress is likened to sausage making, I think this sausage is far preferable to that mess.
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Real laws by "requests for comments" (RFC)? That sounds like either despotism (by pimply CS grad students) or anarchy. I don't care for either.
As much as current democracy/Congress is likened to sausage making, I think this sausage is far preferable to that mess
Sucks to be ignorant, doesn't it?
One of the best things about RFCs is that, whenever possible, the final draft is defined by the results obtained from multiple prototype implementations. Versus the current system of law making in Congress which is more about the demagoguery of professional bullshit artists than it is about empirical results.
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Black helicopters are dispatched. Please, don't leave the area, citizen.
TCP/IP now stands for Trusted Computer Platform / Intellectual Property.
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I think we need something along the lines of what you do with kids when they have to split something like pie. One of them cuts it in half, but the other one gets to decide which half they get. Therefore the kid making the cut has a great incentive to be fair. I'm not sure how you would do that in politics, though.
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Hahahah! I like it!
One man's game (Score:3, Insightful)
Last time I checked, the USA is supposed to be some kind of a democracy. Therefore, instead of hoping for a Wise Person getting appointed, why not use the democracy-ishness and get your stuff fixed?
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You could say the democracy is broken.
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That's amusing, because Stevens was put in the court by a republican president.
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Of course that Republican president was Gerald Ford, a hold-over moderate from the Eisenhower era, not a modern Republican neo-con.
The sad part is that Stevens' views haven't actually changed all that much, but what was once considered to be middle-right is now considered far-left by the authoritarian corporatists who define our current political spectrum.
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"You could say the democracy is broken."
And you'd be wrong, because the vast majority of the population aren't Slashdot geeks, and thus the majority is indifferent to copyright law. The status quo is just fine with them. That means they're uninterested, not that democracy is broken. Convincing them to care is YOUR job, not some judges.
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Better check again, than. The US is a Constitutional Federal Republic (representative government created and limited by a Constitution), not a democracy (mob rule).
Re:One man's game (Score:5, Insightful)
You, as many slashdot users, seem to be a bit confused on the meaning of the word democracy. The concept you seem to be referring to is that of direct democracy. Most democracies today are representative democracies, in which the "rule of the people" is carried out by their elected representatives. It is not at odds with the concept of republic: most western countries are republics (of varied kinds), and they're all (all that I can think of) democratic.
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I always did love the democratic republic or representative democracy angle. It's a great way of trying to dupe people into thinking the nation is ruled by people.
Of course the reality is that people have little to no power in the current United States therefore it isn't a democracy at all, direct or otherwise.
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It really did work! I was under the impression that every country was ruled by people of some kind, even if few in number.
What exactly is running all these countries? Aliens? Lions? Something that passes the turing test?
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Not all of us group politicians and their overlords in with humans.
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Servant 1: Ok, let's fire up the machine. Bring us the list of world news so it can make an informed decision.
Servant 2: Here you go. (passes paper to Servant 1)
(Servant 1 feeds paper into machine)
Servant 1: Ok, here goes. Let's see how it responds to the scandal in the UN.
(shredder noise heard)
(d20 heard bouncing around inside)
Servant 2: Look, the answers are coming out.
Servant 1: (grabs output) Ok, let's see.
Servant 2: Continue oppressing citizens. Send missiles into Pacific Ocean, near Japan. Put resourc
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most western countries are republics (of varied kinds), and they're all (all that I can think of) democratic.
Yeah well, except for the minor "western" countries that aren't such as:
UK
Spain
Canada
Australia
New Zealand
Sweden
Norway
Denmark
The Netherlands
President, Prime Minister, so what? (Score:2)
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No. The term Democracy is usually abused by the ignorant or those with a willfully deceitful agenda.
There is indeed a difference between a Democracy and a Republic.
The Republic addresses the scaling issues of the Democracy.
The term Democracy is used because we tend to hope that the character of it remains as we address the pragmatic issues with implementing it for 300 or 500 million people.
Direct Democracy via Internet (Score:2)
The Republic addresses the scaling issues of the Democracy.
The term Democracy is used because we tend to hope that the character of it remains as we address the pragmatic issues with implementing it for 300 or 500 million people.
I'd like the think that the Internet is one step on the way to making direct Democracy feasible again even with hundreds of millions of people. Perhaps we could all be "present to vote" virtually and make our voices heard directly.
It would be a huge undertaking, but I think it's a goal worth striving for.
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Why? The masses are uninformed, easily swayed sheep without the time or resources necessary to properly investigate any given piece of legislation. not only that, but most of them wouldn't vote anyway. I'm not saying a republic is perfect, but its still better than what a direct democracy would be.
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Even Machiavelli knew that democracies didn't work once you scaled them up. It doesn't matter what technologies you introduce to help make the world "smaller", mob rule (democracy) is not good. It's simple-majority rules with no minority rights. The major benefit of a republic is that the minority not only gets to be heard, but often time gets what it needs, too.
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Thank you and no kidding. Look at how I've been modded down as redundant while the OP got modded up as Insightful. What?! That's ok, though. I know this is /. and stuff isn't supposed to make sense.
Re:One man's game (Score:4, Insightful)
Last time I checked, the USA is supposed to be some kind of a democracy. Therefore, instead of hoping for a Wise Person getting appointed, why not use the democracy-ishness and get your stuff fixed?
We kinda-sorta already do. One of many metrics used to measure a potential presidential candidate is the type of Supreme Court Justice(s) he/she might nominate for appointment. Their judicial appointments are reviewed if they were a governor, and their votes on federal and/or Supreme Court appointments are reviewed if they were a senator. Some Independent voters, as well as "undecideds", consider a candidate's positions on abortion rights, gun rights, civil rights, etc, and the type of Justice they will nominate, when choosing who to vote for.
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In order for that to qualify as democracy-ishness wouldn't the people electing those candidates be a bare minimum? The electorial votes elect presidents, individual citizens don't get a vote. Even if they did, the diebold voting machines are rigged.
Re: One man's game requires much $$ (Score:1)
I've been following US politics for ~ the last 2 years and have repeatedly observed that political change now occurs when Corporate groups buy off large numbers of politicians who then do their bidding.
Any Democratic or popular reactions / movements have to counter that especially if ANY of their goals are opposed by the Corporate lobby. I suspect this could be done either of 2 ways: the movement would have to represent an overwhelming majority, threatening opponents re-elections or the movement would have
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If Only There Was A Way ... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd love to hear his take on DRM, ACTA and this crap [slashdot.org].
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Obama will replace him with someone anti "fair use". He was put on the throne by the media, and they will now be calling in favors. Expect IP law to get a lot worse for the consumer.
MPAA News Channel (Score:3, Informative)
Obama will replace him with someone anti "fair use". He was put on the throne by the media
How can one get elected to the office of President without support of the major TV news networks, all of which are in the MPAA [pineight.com]?
Corporate interests (Score:1)
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Re:Corporate interests (Score:5, Informative)
Sotomayor is definitely pro IP, but she is NOT pro corporation. The two are not mutually inclusive.
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/06/05/whats-sotomayors-stance-on-intellectual-property [webpronews.com]
She is not pro-corporation as stated above. One of her first comments while being questioned made that very clear. She believes corporations should NOT be granted any rights of a 'person'.
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/09/17/is-sotomayors-corporations-arent-people-comment-a-harbinger/tab/article/ [wsj.com]
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She believes corporations should NOT be granted any rights of a 'person'.
Justice Sotomayor's scheme would work for patents, as there usually aren't more than a half dozen inventors listed on an application, who would retain joint ownership of exclusive rights in the invention instead of transferring it to a corporation. But motion pictures, video games, and other works of authorship of similar scope involve at least an order of magnitude more contributors. Who would own the copyright in a work made for hire with 500 credits?
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Sotomayor is definitely pro IP, but she is NOT pro corporation. The two are not mutually inclusive.
I disagree.
She is not pro-corporation as stated above. One of her first comments while being questioned made that very clear. She believes corporations should NOT be granted any rights of a 'person'.
but as long as they are, if you support strong IP rights, then you are pro-corporation, because they are the only ones with the money to win IP fights in court. this is just like Obama's vote on telecoms immunity. "Well, I voted for it, but I voted for this rider to be struck down, and even though I know there was no fucking way that would happen, it makes it so I didn't really vote for telecoms immunity." What's the difference between that and "I voted for strong IP law, but I am against corpora
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Sotomayor is a judge, not a politician. It is her purpose to interpret the law.
According to your logic, even though she outright stated that in her opinion that corporations should not have the same rights as people, you still claim she is pro-corporation?
[From the link above]
"But Justice Sotomayor suggested the majority might have it all wrong — and that instead the court should reconsider the 19th century rulings that first afforded corporations the same rights people have.
Judges “created cor
Obama's appointment support Fair Use?? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure this will be said far better by others, but an unbiased, non-Corporatist appointment by Obama is a pipe dream!
Obama is a ardent Corporatist which you can see by his "Health Care" Bill, the bailouts and his undying advocacy for all RIAA, MPAA and Big Media causes (ACTA for one).
This Court is already a Corporatist court (Corporate Money = Free Speech ruling) and the next appointment will merely cement that.
Obama is a communofascist (Score:1, Funny)
Just look at how many basic constitutional rights have been violated by "Herr" Obama. We no longer have free speech, or the right to have guns, and churches are being outlawed as we speak. Obama controls the media and it all but ignores the amazing tea bagger movement. Just look at how the price of gasoline has gone up, this is part of his plot to make us all walk or take the bus in order to make sure we are too tired to oppose him. The man would fit perfectly inside the communist fascist Nazi party. No
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Really? Laughable? We've already had the first administration-mandated change of a business leadership position. GM was told that they would change CEO's, and it happened, simply because the administration didn't like GM's policies and the CEO at the time wasn't going to change them.
Once the government holds a majority of the stock they control the company. And as far as Obama care goes, well, the bill is written so that the government will have to take control of many parts of the health care industry.
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Once the government holds a majority of the stock they control the company. And as far as Obama care goes, well, the bill is written so that the government will have to take control of many parts of the health care industry. The predicted costs of the bill are estimated at an ~21% cut in existing medicare/medicaid payments, with no allowances for increases in funding for the next decade.
That's the way Medicare is supposed to work. Payment amount is supposed to be tied to the economy. The only reason payme
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To the mods who claim this post was flamebait....
If you're really so disgusted with my point of view, and think I'm so wrong, why not do the sensible thing and prove me wrong? You would think, if you're so sure you're right, that you would be rubbing your hands with glee in expectation of publicly proving me wrong and generating more support for Obama's agendas.
Modding posts like mine to oblivion only proves you're afraid of publicly discussing the issues and that you can't really support your ideas. Hone
Property vs Rights (Score:5, Insightful)
The people need the 21st Century Supreme Court to properly decide the correct balance between property rights and all kinds of other rights, like speech and other expression. And to decide correctly what is actual property and what is just a temporary government monopoly. To recognize that progress in science and the useful arts is promoted when our rights other than a synthetic "copyright" govern the market.
Or we can keep the 20th Century property privilege that the surviving old members of the Court find every excuse to protect.
We will see just how much change Obama truly brings. Or whether he's just a corporatist, who protects the only "right" a corporate person could possibly have: maximizing property and the power that comes with it.
Does he have a license? (Score:2, Funny)
I thought someone else had patented skepticism. Does he have a license to use it?
False marking (Score:4, Funny)
It is, I think, self self-evident.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Consider that even when one might happen to simply mentally remember their experience of a movie, they are, in essence, creating a temporal copy of that experience for themselves, and quite arguably even a derivative work of it, yet under any notion that unauthorized personal use copies of copyrighted works would not be fair use, simply by _THINKING_, one can be breaking the law.
Regardless of the enforceability aspects that come into play with this sort of thing, I find that anything which might make what a person could happen to think against the law, even if only by technicality, or else a violation of anybody else's rights to be nothing short of an abomination.
As an aside, I abhor patents on computer algorithms for the same reason.
Troll? (Score:1)
Okay, it's bad form to reply to ones own post, but I'm genuinely curious here... how does my above post qualify as a troll?
I'm not objecting to being modded down, per se, but I'm wondering what I said in the above post that somebody thought I was trying to troll.
Greenwald on Justice Stevens' replacement (Score:2)
Now more than ever, it's vital we pay attention to the candidates the Obama Administration puts forward.
In light of VP Joe 'Hollywood' Biden's unbridled support by and for media industries and the Administration's inability to take a principled stand against the financial, insurance or pharmaceutical lobbyists, as well as its apparent pursuit of unbridled Executive power, it's dubious that the candidates we see coming from this White House will be equal to the chair being vacated by Justice Stevens.
If you
Courts decide if things are Constitutional (Score:3, Insightful)
I see posts that are advocating legislation from the bench. This is not the purpose of the court. The court is only there to decide the constitutionality of an issue. They are not there to do anything more.
If you don't like the law, you need to petition congress... UNLESS the law is unconstitutional, then you can take it to the courts.
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But that's the point: 'limited time to promote the science and the arts'. Our case is that copyrights aren't limited, and that their length, and the retroactiveness of the extensions, doesn't really fit what the constitution states, as a very long copyright term hinders creativity more than it promotes it.
Same thing for patents: What one can do with the same patent term 100 years ago is so much less than you can do now, that in fact keeping the patent length the same is effectively an extension.
Ah, if Lessi
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I dunno...
I think it's the courts job to declare that "limited times" does not infact mean continual retroactive increase in terms.
It's the courts explicit job to interpret new laws in light of "THE LAW". They aren't just spectators. They are equal partners in governance.
People like to belittle this fact and also tend to neglect that "legislating from the bench" is what judges in the common law system do. The Judiciary serves an important role in our government with our system their power shouldn't be so ca
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Marbury v. Madison made legislating from the bench the main purpose of the court.
Personal copies of copyrighted content? (Score:3, Insightful)
The justices' initial debates in the case make it clear that Stevens was the only one of the nine who believed that the 'fair use' doctrine gave consumers a right to make personal copies of copyrighted content for home use
That is a bit of an overstatement, don't you think? Recording an over the air broadcast for later viewing is not quite the same thing as exchanging bootleg copies of Photoshop, etc. There doesn't appear to be any indication that Justice Stevens endorsed the latter.
So in other words (Score:2)
We are screwed.
You might find a liberal like Stevens (Score:2)
Obama might find a liberal like Stevens who can replace his ideological position, but where's he going to someone with the negotiation skill, influence, and ...oh yes... seniority to make liberal opinions and liberal majorities happen?
Dont forget Mr Rogers role (Score:2)