San Francisco - The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has rejected an appeal from Internet activists, including Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle, that would have reexamined the extensions to copyright term lengths enacted during the 1990s.

The activists had argued that the copyright extensions violate First Amendment free speech rights by preventing the "orphan works" from entering the public domain sooner, where they may be freely distributed and used in new works.

Before 1976, copyrights lasted 28 years; the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1992, and an amendment to that law in 1998 extended copyright terms to the life of the author plus 70 years.

This extension was affirmed in 2003 by the Supreme Court in Eldred v. Ashcroft, which the Ninth Circuit referred to in its rejection of the appeal in Kahle v. Gonzales.

"They (the plaintiffs) make essentially the same argument, in different form, that the Supreme Court rejected in Eldred. It fails here as well," the Ninth Circuit wrote, in its ruling.

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/2jgv39 (Reuters)
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/799
http://www.archive.org/iathreads/post-view.php?id=96846
http://tinyurl.com/2btmlr (Ninth Circuit's ruling: PDF)