🚀 go-pugleaf

hollaar@faith.cs.utah.edu (Lee Hollaar) wrote:
>In article <slrn8ouslj.fcl.sholden@pgrad.cs.usyd.edu.au>
sholden@cs.usyd.edu.au writes:
>>On 8 Aug 2000 02:29:19 GMT, Lee Hollaar
<hollaar@faith.cs.utah.edu> wrote:
>>>In article <Pine.GSU.4.05.10008072127560.21530-
100000@psyche.the-wire.com> Austin Ziegler <aziegler@the-
wire.com> writes:
>>>>As a matter of fact, I do NOT have any faith
>>>>in government when Disney is able to lobby a retroactive
change to
>>>>copyright laws (which hasn't, so far as I can tell, been
done with
>>>>previous changes to copyright law and duration).
>>>
>>>Would you please clarify what you mean by "a retroactive
change to
>>>copyright laws"?
>>>
>>>Are you saying that the term of an existing work was
extended?  If
>>>so, that also happened with the passage of the Copyright Act
of 1976.
>>
>>As you would expect. Can't have Mickey Mouse falling into the
public
>>domain can we... After all then Disney would lose a major cash
cow.
>
>But that's not what he appears to be claiming.  Read what he
wrote.
>He thinks that copyright term extension is something that hasn't
>happened before.
>
>I'm not arguing whether it is right or wrong, but to state that
it is
>something that hasn't happened before is incorrect.  If you are
arguing
>against something, at least be accurate in describing what you
are
>arguing against.

It seems unimportant to me whether Congress did or did not do
something unconstitutional in the past when discussing the
constitutionality of a recent Act.  Knowing that Congress is a
repeat offender in violating the constitution is not comforting.

If we were considering the guilt of an alleged bank robber on
such-and-such a date, would we be concerned about whether he
robbed a different bank 25 years ago?  And if he did, would that
mitigate a more recent offense?

Andy




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