joegratz.net

Golan v. Ashcroft is a challenge to certain copyright legislation resulting from the Uruguay Round agreements which removes some foreign works from the public domain, known as the URAA. A District Court judge in Denver today issued an order denying the government’s motion to dismiss claims that the URAA violates the Progress Clause (U.S. Const. art. 8, sec. 8, cl. and the First Amendment, and that its retroactivity amounts to a denial of substantive due process, violating the Fifth Amendment. He granted the government’s motion to dismiss Golan’s challenge to the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, ruling that the Supreme Court’s decision in Eldred v. Ashcroft completely foreclosed constitutional challenges to the CTEA based on Progress Clause and First Amendment arguments.

Golan is far from victory, however. All this means is that Golan’s claims are not obviously foreclosed by existing law, not that they will ultimately prevail. I hope they do; the URAA is a bad law, and pulling works out of the Public Domain is always bad policy.