I've been away for a while as I've been setting up my new personal
server, but I had to interject a bit of very good news for those who
may not have heard or may not have understood the whole
ramificiations of this:
The Supreme Court has granted certiorari in the case of "Eldred v.
Ashcroft" (originally Eldred v. Reno), which seeks to challenge the
Sonny Bono copyright term extension act (an act of Congress intended
to encourage dead authors to write more :-) as unconstitutional, and
indeed seeks to overturn _all_ such term extensions. This is not a
ruling--the court has merely agreed to hear the case; but that in
itself is a big step. The court hasn't heard a major copyright case
since 1985, and the fact that they took this one on is evidence that
they think it will set important precedents. If they do rule
favorably, _thousands_ of older out-of-print works from dead authors
may become available to us and to other Internet projects. Cross
your fingers.
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