Supreme Court Upholds Mickey Mouse
from the ouch dept
Well, this isn’t good, though it was to be expected. Despite a valiant effort by Larry Lessig, the Supreme Court has upheld the perpetual extension of copyright control. They sided against Lessig and his client, by a 7-2 margin, making sure that Mickey Mouse will forever remain in the sole control of Disney – and tons of other content that has disappeared out of print remains inaccessible to just about everyone. The ruling basically says that the extensions weren’t unconstitutional, and Congress had every right to make them. So, now, the only way to fix this is to convince Congress that they made a mistake – and that’s a fairly difficult proposition. Update: Larry Lessig has posted a very honest, emotional response to losing the case (he blames himself), and wonders if losing the case will help galvanize people to oppose the extension of copyights in Congress (something he isn’t at all convinced will happen).
