[dvd-discuss] Golan v Ashcroft: to "Secure for limited times"

[John Schulien <jms(at)uic.edu>]

> The meaning and interpretation of "limited" was what I was
> grappling with (not successfully ) a few months ago with the
> question regarding why copyright terms had to be uniform.

The Golan v Ashcroft reply brief has an argument relating
to the "limited times" issue that I don't recall having been made
explicitly in Eldred:

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/golanvashcroft/golan-reply.html

  The government�s view of �limited Times� ... also undermines any
  notion that Congress has �secur[ed]� copyrights �for limited Times.�
  The Framers were quite specific that Congress must �secur[e] for
  limited Times� � in other words,  not just to provide, [FN 12]
  to establish, [FN 13]  or to grant [FN 14]  for limited Times, but
  to secure for limited Times. The verb to �secure� means �to make
  certain.� Oxford English  Dictionary 852 (2d ed. 1989) (�to make
  secure or certain�); see Wheaton v. Peters, 33 U.S. at 660
  (�secure� means �to protect, insure, save, ascertain, etc�).  ...

  ... The only way Congress can �secure for limited Times�
  copyrights is to enact limited terms of copyright that are certain
  and unchanging over time. Although Congress may alter the
  term of copyrights, it may only do so prospectively. For a
  term of an existing copyright that changes over time is, by no
  means, secured or certain. Quite the opposite: if the terms of
  existing copyrights keep changing � as it has 11 eleven times
  in the past 40 years � and is always subject to further change
  by Congress (as the government argues), those terms are
  insecure.