i-sako.com

I mentioned Larry Lessig’s ideas about copyrights right around this time last month, then more recently the Supreme Court upheld the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which was a big blow to Lessig. Even more recently still Joi Ito’s weblog pointed me to a NYT article by Lessig that challenges Congress to revise its stance on copyright extensions. 

As I wrote before, this seems like a very reasonable way to handle copyrights. A similar system is already in place for patents, after all.

I applaud Lessig’s drive and hope that Congress will look into this matter more seriously (though the cynic in me doubts that it will).

I also can understand why the Supreme Court ruled the way it did. It is not the Court’s job to strike down laws that are wrong, but only those that are manifestly unconstitutional. In order to strike this extension act down, it would need to be clear that all previous copyright extensions were unconstitutional as well. 

I am quite curious, however, how the Court would regard something like the USA PATRIOT Act, which I view as more than merely unconstitutional—it’s just downright sinister!