So you know that whole First Amendment thing where it says that Congress "shall make no law" abridging the freedom of speech? Like, the one that's designed to protect citizen interests against the interests of the government? Well, it seems that a Federal appeals court doesn't think that stuff is very important, compared to the concerns of well-funded lobbyists from the RIAA and other publishing industries. In fact, the court specifically says that the reasoning behind its decision is that there is a "substantial or important government interest" in violating the First Amendment.
The particular issue at hand is the removal by Congress of works from the public domain and their re-placement under copyright. This is what the Court says it's OK to do. So, let's say I am a really good lobbyist who represents the interests of the William Shakespeare estate. If I can grease enough palms on Capitol Hill, I can get Shakespeare's works retroactively yanked from the public domain and put back into copyright, which will result in either a massive influx of royalty checks from publishers to my pocket OR the exit of all my competition from the marketplace. Which is nice.
I'm currently cooking up a scheme to lobby Congress on behalf of the estate of YHWH / G_d to put the Torah and Bible back in copyright. Then, I wont have to wait for heaven to walk on streets of gold. (40,654)
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