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DigitalRight Law
Racing Against Time
By Lawrence Lessig
In 1998, Congress passed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which extended the term of existing and future copyrights by 20 years—from 75 to 95 years for corporate works, and life plus 50 to 70 years for literary works by authors. They make it harder for content to be deployed on the Internet; they increase the cost of innovation.
Copyright law is a crucial part of the system of incentive necessary to spur creative work.
But the law affects creativity differently in cyberspace than in real space.
Content owners have been quick to argue that cyberspace weakens copyright protection, since digital copies are so easy to make and distribution costs are so low.
But it is also true that the Internet can strengthen the power of copyright owners far beyond anything imagined by the framers of our copyright act.
Think, for example, about the difference between a book and an e-book.
When a book is published in real space, copyright law controls who may print and initially distribute the book.
All these "uses" of an e-book are within the reach of copyright's regulation, while the very same uses of a book in real space would not be.
It is this difference that creates the worry about extending copyright terms.
Imagine a world where used bookstores would have to pay royalties each time a used book was sold: Would there be any used bookstores?

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