Supreme Court to review the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. Whoa!

In a case initiated by an Internet publisher, the Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to review whether Congress has exercised too much authority in copyright protection. The outcome could affect the availability of books, music and movies online.

The nonprofit publisher and other plaintiffs argue that Congress sided too heavily with writers and other creators when it passed a law in 1998 retroactively extending copyright terms by 20 years.

This article does a nice job with supplementary background information on copyright and its repeated extensions. See also more info on this appeal.