While the original Communications Decency Act was struck down, government officials are still trying to censor the Net, and sometimes succeeding.
One bill that has been signed into a law is a bill, known as "CDA II", that could fine commercial Internet providers up to $50,000 if they allow any "material harmful to minors" to be distributed on the Net without access blocks. Although the Justice Department has said the law is unconstitutional, it was still passed in the last days of Congress, attached to a budget bill signed by President Clinton.
Congress has also mandated censorship at the receiving end. A law now being brought before the Supreme Court requires libraries (and schools) receiving federal funds to "filter" all their Internet access; such requirements are already in place in certain local governments. Popular filtering software packages block far more material than that which is legally obscene. In fact, our own Banned Books Online exhibit has been banned by some libraries using these filters. In 1998, in a suit involving this editor and other plantiffs, a federal court held that mandatory filtering in public libraries was unconstitutional. We hope that this ruling will set a useful precedent against other government attempts to censor the Net.
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Beyond a certain point, copyrights no longer act as incentives to create new works (particularly if they substantially outlive the authors). A large number of works were created in the 1920s with a maximum copyright period of 56 years. (already twice as long as the original copyright terms for the US). This was already extended to 75 years 20 years ago, with a life + 50 year term for new works. It has recently been extended again, to 95 years for old works, and life + 70 for new ones, and some in the entertainment industry are calling for even longer, or even perpetual, terms. The law was challenged in court, but eventually the Supreme Court decided not to overrule Congress on the matter.
Excessive copyright extensions, like the one recently enacted, are bad for the public, and do not help the actual creators of works either. Copyright protection already goes well past their own lifespan, and well past the time any of an author's children reach adulthood. Copyright extension also does nothing to encourage the creation of works that have already been published -- but it will apply to those works as well. While the US is now a few years into a 20-year freeze of the public domain, there is real danger it could be frozen much longer-- or even permanently-- with subsequent copyright extensions.
Concerned US citizens should write their legislators to know that they do object to copyright extensions, and that they are not the "uncontroversial, no-lose" bills their proponents claim to be. With the new extension, no further books will enter the public domain through copyright expiration until at least 2019, and books that could otherwise go online may languish in oblivion until then.
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Copyright 1993-2003 by John Mark Ockerbloom (onlinebooks@pobox.upenn.edu)