The 7-2 ruling in the case of Eldred v. Ashcroft, while not unexpected, dashed the hopes of Internet publishers and others who wanted to make old books available online and use other old creations without paying high royalties.
It also put an undetermined number of MST3K episodes effectively out of reach of a TV network that might choose to air them, or video distributors that might want to release those episodes commercially on video or DVD.
The rights to the films featured in most MST3K episodes were purchased for only a few years and, in the majority of cases, those rights have expired, and will have to be renewed before the episodes can be shown on TV or released on video and DVD. In quite many cases the rights owners have set prices prohibitively high; in a few cases they are apparently doing so to suppress the episodes in which their property was ridiculed.
If the Court had overturned the copyright extension, an undetermined number of films featured in MST3K episodes might have gained “public domain” status, markedly lowering the price TV networks or video distributors would have had to pay to make those episodes available.
In their opinions, the justices indicated that they thought the copyright extension, named for the late Rep. Sonny Bono (R-Calif.), was questionable policy, but they concluded that it was neither unconstitutional overreaching by Congress, nor a violation of constitutional free-speech rights, as public domain advocates had claimed in the suit.
“We find that the (extension) is a rational enactment; we are not at liberty to second-guess congressional determinations and policy judgments of this order, however debatable or arguably unwise they may be,” the court said.
Congress has repeatedly lengthened the terms of copyrights over the years. Copyrights lasted only 14 years in 1790. With the challenged 1998 extension, the period is now 70 years after the death of the creator. Works owned by corporations are now protected for 95 years.
All works made in 1964 or later are protected under the legislation, whether their owners formally requested a renewal of their rights or not. All works made between 1923 and 1963 are similarly protected if their owners properly filed for copyright renewal. Works made before 1923 are not protected by the extension, but MST3K does not feature any movies that old.
In addition, some works that were previously considered public domain titles have had their public domain status effectively removed because the creators of music or other elements within the film have exercised their copyrights.