CULTURAS IN VITRO

Kahle v. Ashcroft Case Page: two archives ask the U.S. district court for the Northern District of California to find that a law that extended copyright terms unconditionally -- the Berne Convention Implementation Act (BCIA) -- is unconstitutional under the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment, and that the BCIA and Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) together create an "effectively perpetual" term with respect to works first published after January 1, 1964 and before January 1, 1978, in violation of the Constitution's Progress Clause. The complaint asks the court for a declaratory judgement ruling, stating that copyright restrictions on orphaned works -- works whose copyright has not expired but which are no longer available -- violates the constitution.