Or at least, that's what federal Judge Maxine Chesney was evidently thinking when she dismissed [PDF] Kahle v. Ashcroft, a challenge to a number of laws extending/expanding copyright. The decision begs the question: Just how twisted (or more appropriately, "contorted") does copyright law have to get before the courts can step in?

More from John Borland at ZDNet here.

Update: Joe Gratz, who personally helped out with the Kahle challenge this past summer: "Under Chesney's simple reasoning, any law that creates more or stronger copyrights is rationally related to the progress of science and automatically passes constitutional muster. Because all of the challenged statutes grant more rights to copyright holders, Chesney reasons, they must all be immune to further constitutional scrutiny.

Chesney is wrong, and I wish Chris Sprigman, Larry Lessig, and the rest of the Kahle team luck in their appeal to the Ninth Circuit."