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Comment by bentley | Hacker News Reader

Previous copyright extensions were not constitutional amendments. Decreasing the length of new copyright terms could be done the same way, without any need for an amendment.

Reducing the length of existing copyright terms might be considered an ex post facto law. Those are explicitly prohibited by the Constitution.

The Constitution states that copyrights must be limited in length. Retroactively extending the duration of existing copyrights (as opposed to new copyrights) should be unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court said in Eldred v. Ashcroft that it’s fine—wrongly, in my opinion. Correcting them would require an amendment.

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> Reducing the length of existing copyright terms might be considered an ex post facto law. Those are explicitly prohibited by the Constitution.

No, that is definitely not an ex post facto law. That's not even close to what the ex post facto law clause covers (dealing with punishments for actions that were kosher at the time they took place).

There is an argument that shortening copyrights is prohibited by the takings clause. But I think there is a very good argument that shortening them isn't prohibited by the takings clause (for the same public-private interest balance reason that led to the first amendment arguments in Eldred v. Ashcroft and Golan v. Holder failing).

The takings clause does not apply to copyright. Copyright is not private property. Courts are not stupid.

> Reducing the length of existing copyright terms might be considered an ex post facto law.

It's arguable that "about a century" was not what the drafters of the Constitution had in mind when writing "a limited time", but convincing the Supreme Court of that would be harder than an actual amendment.

But isn't the ex post facto prohibition mainly related to consequences of past actions rather than general public policy? No one is going to jail because copyright terms were reduced to 15 years from 95.

I think such a reduction would definitely be constitutional if it were phrased as "all new copyright terms will be XYZ, and existing ones will expire XYZ from the effective date of this act," but I'm not totally convinced that's necessary.

You aren't taking away anything from grants that don't exist yet, so just reduce the term for new copyrights and Steamboat Willy is your uncle.

Takes longer than changing the terms of existing grants, but so what.

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