United States Tenth Circuit

In an action brought by plaintiffs who rely on artistic works in the public domain for their livelihood, challenging the Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) and section 514 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA), dismissal of the CTEA claim and summary judgment for the government on the URAA challenges are affirmed in part and remanded in part as: 1) the challenge to the CTEA was foreclosed by Supreme Court precedent; 2) section 514 of the URAA has not exceeded the limitations inherent in the Copyright Clause; but 3) plaintiffs have shown sufficient free expression interests in works removed from the public domain to require First Amendment scrutiny of section 514.

Appellate Information

• Decided 09/04/2007
• Published 09/05/2007

Judges

• HENRY, Circuit Judge., Before HENRY, BRISCOE, and LUCERO, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Tenth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Lawrence Lessig, Center for Internet and Society, Stanford Law School, Stanford, California (Hugh Q. Gottschalk and Carolyn J. Fairless, Wheeler Trigg Kennedy LLP, Denver, Colorado, with him on the briefs), for Plaintiffs-Appellants.


• For Appellees:
  
• John S. Koppel, Appellate Staff Civil Division (Peter D. Keisler, Assistant Attorney General, William J. Leone, United States Attorney, and William Kanter, Appellate Staff Civil Division, Washington, D.C., with him on the brief), for Defendants-Appellees., Eric M. Lieberman and David B. Goldstein, Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky & Lieberman, P.C., New York, New York, filed an Amicus Curiae brief in support of Defendants-Appellees.