Kahle vs. Ashcroft

I don’t have anything to say about the case that hasn’t been said before, but I am really saddened by the fact that this case, challenging the Sony Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, has been dismissed. To me, this is a clear sign (among many) that our government has moved completely away from any consideration of the welfare of its citizens and completely into the pockets of those who hold the purse-strings (like Disney). All Kahle, the founder of the Internet Archive, wanted to do was to put out-of-print books and movies in his Internet archive. He didn’t want to do this to make a ton of money (it’s a non-profit, free archive). He wanted to make things he enjoyed as a kid available to children today throug the medium they commonly use. I don’t think those supporting the Sony Bono Copyright Term Extension Act had it in their minds that they wanted to protect poor authors from losing the rights to their works. They wanted to make it easier for companies to continue making money off works that should have passed into the public domain already. I guess none of this should surprise me, but it saddens me just the same. Wired has a good article about the case.