[clue-talk] The War On...?

[Jed S. Baer]

On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 16:28:51 -0800 (PST)
Tommy Phillips wrote:

> How about a little perspective here?  We are talking
> about swapping digital music, not racial injustice. 
> This is not an issue of civil disobedience; it's just
> laziness and greed. 

Well, I thought we were getting all philosophical. :)

But I'll reel it in a little for you. It's only a small stretch from the
case in question to something about which we can make an argument, as
Larry Lessig did, IIRC, in Eldred v Ashcroft. (Which he regrettably lost.)

What is the meaning of "for a limited time", in the Copyright Clause of
the Constitution? Suppose we have a file sharer who is sharing material
which had passed into the public domain, only to be taken back by the
copyright term extension in the "Copyright Term Extension Act"?

There's an enormous amount of ground to cover in re. intellectual
property, and, I think, legitimate grounds for protest, and even
disobedience. However, I'm not going to go there, as I have other fish to
fry.

jed
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