A potentially important court decision discussed here. The First Amendment has been traditionally rejected as a defense against a copyright infringement. Although the door has only been opened a crack at this point, that may be about to change.

Since nearly all creative works build upon previous works on some level, I would think that the devastating effects on free speech would be obvious when you attempt to take a public domain work and try and reassert copyright protections on it. All of the subsequently created derivative works that were created during the public domain window would presumably have to be repressed and/or destroyed.

It depends if you've bought into the urban legend that is the 'public domain'.

To a large extent copyright legislation has been corrupted by a curiously advantageous notion that an author has a natural right to control the copying of their work (it, of course, only naturally exists for unpublished work).

Therefore:

• There is no public domain. Or rather, all published works are the public domain.
• Unless authorised, you shouldn't copy someone else's work - full stop.
• Copyright is limited only because the state doesn't have the resources to protect an ever growing number of works in perpetuity.

So, from this perspective, given that no-one ever has a recognised right to copy a work, then the fact that copyright's protection is extended has absolutely no adverse consequences (except to pirates).

However, because the public believe in the fairy tale version of the public domain (apart from publishers and their lawyers), we have a legislative superimposition of notions:

1. That copyright is limited protection of an author's natural right, limited by resources and no other reason, in order to persuade the author to publish (having confidence that their 'right' is protected).
2. That copyright is a wholly artificial privilege, a commercially lucrative grant of monopoly over reproduction, that is offered for a brief duration in exchange for the work to become public property thereafter.

In the first case, retrospective term extension is merely extending protection in light of available resources, and everyone should be thankful.

In the second case, retrospective term extension is to renege on the deal.

Some are hoping that the superimposition should collapse to recognise copyright as a deal, and the 'public domain' the set of works received in exchange. This will then establish the 'public domain' as a legally recognised construct and the party to copyright as 'social' contract.

Frankly, it doesn't matter what happens. Copyright is a suspension of everyone's natural right to share and build upon public, human knowledge. It doesn't matter whether people pretend copyright to be a right instead of a privilege, or even if they recognise that it is a privilege, it is a privilege that shouldn't exist.

Just in case you are not yet aware, your feeds have been down for a while (since the 25th of August, according to my records). I look forward to seeing your posts in my feed reader again.

Thanks.