Crucial Week Ahead for Rights in Digital Age


This week, Larry Lessig will argue in the U.S. Supreme Court -- a case called Eldred v. Ashcroft -- that Congress can't indefinitely extend copyright terms. The case is easily the most important "intellectual property" case in years, because if Eldred loses, the copyright cartel will be impossible to stop for at least a decade.
I sense lately that people are beginning to grasp what's at stake in the larger battle, even though most people don't know the Eldred case. Your rights, including free speech itself, are fundamentally on the table.
The cartel wants indefinite copyright terms. It demands control or veto power over technology that can be used to make unauthorized digital copies -- that is, damn near every technology that exists today and everything that will exist tomorrow.
If Lessig can't persuade the court to begin to rein in the entertainment industry's arrogance, the only alternatives will be grim. We will all have to decide whether to organize, to turn Congress back toward tradition and rights, or go for mass civil disobedience. I'm not ready to call for the latter. Yet.


dan gillmor's e-journal