On Tue, 21 Jan 2003 11:51:46 +0800, you wrote: > > The US Constitution prohibits ex post facto laws. > > Marc
First, the US Constitution is a piece of paper currently being ignored by this administration, and most likely any administration going forward. The current stance of the US government is that power comes from the barrel of a gun, not from a grant of limited powers to the government by the people. Second, the now defunct prohibition of ex post facto laws regards criminalizing today what someone did yesterday, and imposing criminal penalties on that person for it. > > Bill Stewart wrote: > > > There were documents that were _going_ to become public domain soon > > that will now stay copyrighted for another 20 years, > > and one of the issues addressed by the Supremes in Eldred was > > whether the grant of an extra 20 years of copyright monopoly to > > documents that already had expiration dates assigned under the > > old laws was appropriate, as distinguished from granting a > > longer monopoly to new documents, but I thought it was established law > > that if something once became public domain it stayed that way.
