[alextheparrot]

Some would argue that the undefined duration does not match “limited times” and that the copyright is no longer “promoting useful arts”. While some of these questions have been answered in Disney’s favour in recent times, it is clear that the “matter of law” is anything but clear.

[cookiecaper]

This was adjudicated up to the Supreme Court: https://www.oyez.org/cases/2002/01-618

tl;dr: 7-2 as long as there is some type of time limitation, Congress is free to extend copyright terms.

[cthor]

Eldred vs Ashcroft held that the CTEA (Sony Bono act) was constitutional.

This is a good point worth bringing up, since the GP seems to imply it isn't with reference to the wording of the constitution's Copyright Clause.

However, it doesn't answer the moral question of whether congress should have passed that law, or whether congress should pass laws to change copyright term lengths to be shorter. That's not the role of the court.

[henrikschroder]

Cool, so why not set the limit to the heat-death of the universe and be done with it?

[cookiecaper]

> Cool, so why not set the limit to the heat-death of the universe and be done with it?

Presumably SCOTUS would say that an effectively-infinite timeline is not "limited" within the Constitutional definition of the word. Eldred v. Ashcroft basically tried to argue that continual decades-long extensions amounted to this, but the Court was not convinced.

[Dylan16807]

The supreme court agreeing on something is a solid piece of evidence that something is correct, but it's very far from ironclad. Especially when it's not unanimous.