While I strongly disagree with the length of copyright protection, after reading this and reading more about the case, from a purely legal perspective, I just don't see how IA has any defense. They basically just seem to be saying "these are old records, so we should be able to copy them. Also, our work is mainly for academic researchers." My guess is that they are arguing fair use, but I just don't see how that applies here when they make copyrighted works available, for free, over the Internet.
Would appreciate it if folks would abstain from responding with how the record companies are greedy bastards, or how the IA is doing great work, or how copyright protection has strayed from its original goals of encouraging innovative new works to become a victim of rent-seeking behavior, or that the law itself is unjust here. All of that I wholeheartedly agree with. I'm not a lawyer, and I'm just interested in trying to understand if they have any legal defense that isn't going to get laughed out of court.
Would appreciate it if folks would abstain from responding with how the record companies are greedy bastards, or how the IA is doing great work, or how copyright protection has strayed from its original goals of encouraging innovative new works to become a victim of rent-seeking behavior, or that the law itself is unjust here. All of that I wholeheartedly agree with. I'm not a lawyer, and I'm just interested in trying to understand if they have any legal defense that isn't going to get laughed out of court.