More on the Supreme Court's decision against Eldred, Lessig, et al.

DigitalConsumer.org Statement on Eldred Case:

Digitalconsumer.org today issued the following statement regarding the Supreme Court's ruling on the Eldred case:

Today's Eldred ruling is bad for consumers, bad for innovation and ultimately bad for America. It is another in a series of blows to consumer rights to copyrighted works.

This large setback for consumers should be a call to action: those who care about innovation and the public's access to creative works must re-focus their attention on Congress. Public pressure should now turn to having our elected officials legislate a more equitable balance between copyright holders and consumers since the courts have said clearly that they will not intervene in this debate.

This ruling underscores the importance of protecting consumer fair-use rights. With the court's decision to affirm the monopoly privileges of content holders, the only remaining counter-balance is a set of consumer fair-use rights. Unfortunately, those rights have been under siege in Congress and in the marketplace. This ruling today reinforces the need for Congress to bolster the fair-use rights of citizens.

Blogcritic Dan Gillmor in SiliconValley.com:

Swipe a CD from a record store and you'll get arrested. But when Congress authorizes the entertainment industry to steal from you — well, that's the American way.

We learned as much on Wednesday when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Congress can repeatedly extend copyright terms, as it did most recently in 1998 when it added 20 years to the terms for new and existing works.

The law, a brazen heist, was called the Copyright Term Extension Act. It was better known as the Sonny Bono act, so named after its chief sponsor even though Disney and other giant media corporations were the money and muscle behind it.

Who got robbed? You did. I did.

Who won? Endlessly greedy media barons will now collect billions from works that should have long since entered the public domain.

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