Consumer Electronics Association Responds To Supreme Court Ruling On Copyright Extension

27-Jan-03

The following statement was issued by Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) President and CEO Gary Shapiro in response to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling regarding the congressional extension of copyright terms: ""We are disappointed the Court has decided to uphold the Constitutionality of the extension of copyrights. With this ruling, copyrights are now protected for up to a century. The Constitutional mandate that copyright terms be restricted to 'limited terms' becomes almost meaningless as Congress yielded to Hollywood's extension request.""Certainly, creative work must be encouraged and original ideas protected. But this idea must be balanced with the need--and right-- to promote broad public access to copyrighted works and to allow for technological innovation.""It is simply unfair that companies who made their fortune taking works in the public domain and reformatting them for new technology are now preventing others from following the same business model. Congress took from the public and gave to Disney. And while most Justices recognized this was horrible public policy they also chose to find it Constitutional.""We call upon the Congress to revisit the extension and return reasonable limits to the copyright term.""For more information about the CEA, visit www.ce.org.

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