Justices To Weigh In On Web Copyright LawJustices To Weigh In On Web Copyright Law

Copyright infringement on the Internet has been in the courts more than once in the past year. The Supreme Court decided Tuesday to take up the topic again.

The court will decide whether a 20-year extension of existing copyright laws granted by the Supreme Court in 1998 is constitutional. Those laws extend the copyright to 70 years after the death of the creator. Last year, the high court granted freelance writers online rights to their work.

Challengers to the law fear it will prevent thousands of books, musical works, and movies from becoming available online or in digital libraries for free. Mark Lemley, a law professor representing the Internet Archive, a nonprofit organization that built an Internet library to be used for research, told The Associated Press that many recordings, books, and movies could be lost as a result of the new law. In 1930, about 10,027 books were published. As of last year, only 174 were still in print, Lemley says.

In a brief filed with the court, Internet Archive states, "The public domain has assumed a central role in education in this country and around the world. Projects to digitize and give away millions of out-of-copyright books, movies, and music are now under way, funded by foundations, the government, and indeed corporations. Yet the projects are directly confronting the largest barrier to making our cultural heritage available to all--the repeated extension of copyright terms at the expense of the public domain."

The Bush administration backs the copyright extension and urged the high court to reject Internet Archive's appeal.