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Thursday, January 20, 2005

More on Kahle v. Ashcroft

After their case was dismissed in District Court last November, Brewster Kahle and Richard Prelinger promised to appeal. They filed their appellate brief yesterday in the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The brief lists these three Issues on Appeal:
  1. Whether the change from an "opt-in" to an "opt-out" system of copyright alters a "traditional contour[] of copyright," requiring "further First Amendment scrutiny" under the standard established in Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186, 123 S. Ct. 769 (2003).
  2. Whether the current term of copyright is so long as to be effectively perpetual.
  3. Whether a statute that extends copyright terms that have not, and will not, pass through a filter of renewal violates the "limited Times" condition of Article I, sec. 8, cl. 8 ("the Progress Clause").

For more background and updates, see the page on the case maintained by the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society.