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Supreme Court Says Congress May Re-Copyright Public Domain Works
- dreamux 15y agoInteresting issue. I wonder if it would be possible for a country to set up an extremely long copyright term (with a huge administrative fee) that would have to be respected under US law (and other adopters of the treaty). I'm sure many music/movie studios and authors would gladly pay $100K to copyright each of their works internationally for 500 years...
- akikuchi 15y agoCreative thinking, but I'd have to disagree with your conclusion. The present value of the additional years of copyright would be very low, especially taking into account 1. the probability that the work will still be a source of value 100 years (not the exact number, but for the sake of argument) in the future and 2.The possibility of changes in the local jurisdiction or US law over that time. Your idea would mean paying 100k for the possibility of receiving some additional value 100 years in the future. The first 100 years of value are already protected under US law.
- turbulence 15y agoI wonder how the world would look like if everything had a copyright limit of 15 years instead. Would we be better off, or worse?
- casca 15y agoWhile this might be frustrating on the surface, this is exactly the sort of thing that should be decided by the lawmakers. You might personally dislike what the US legislative branch has become, but if you follow that it is acting in the interests of the citizens who elected them, this is the correct decision.
- markbao 15y agoIdeally, yes. However, Congress' approval rate is 13% right now. That's not anywhere near "acting in the interests of the citizens who elected them."
- dantheman 15y agoI beg to differ, the Constitution clearly specifies why copyright should exist: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." How does retroactively adding copyright to public domain works in anyway "promote" it's already been accomplished. This the same argument that was used Eldred vs. Ashcroft where this argument also failed. It was a bad ruling then and it's a bad ruling now. If we want to have this decided by the lawmakers then we should amend the Constitution to grant this power.
- Volpe 15y agoPerhaps, because the world doesn't begin and end with the US east and west coast. If you ignore the fact this is still under copyright overseas, you are setting the precedent that they can do the same in return. No?
- joering1 15y agothe problem is that many times the world follows US laws and regulations and applies those locally (also: student being deported to US based on broken UK law that UK itself wasnt interested in prosecuting)
- rayiner 15y agoWhat "promote the progress of science and useful arts" is such fuzzy language, deferring to the legislature's idea of what promotes that progress is as reasonable a decision as imposing the Court's own view. Of course adding a given public domain work back into copyright doesn't promote the creation of any specific work, but harmonizing American copyright law with European laws, generally, might arguably promote creation of works. The key phrase in the clause is that: [The Congress shall have Power]* to... [secure] for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries. *) Article I, Section 8. Like the other enumerated powers, the language of the Constitution gives Congress a lot of leeway in exercising that specific power.
- 1010011010 15y agoCopyright terms should be reduced to the original 14 years, if not less, retroactively. Copyrights should be non-renewable. Obtaining copyright should require registering each work with the copyright office. There should be an annual fee for maintaining a copyright that is proportional to the revenue received from the copyright. There should additionally be stiff penalties for asserting copyright when you do not actually have it.
- silentOpen 15y agoI have to register my GPL'd script to protect my attribution? No thanks. Everything should be immediately copyrighted if you mark it and specify its license terms. 14 years is long enough for total copyright but attribution rights should last forever.
- ndefinite 15y agoWow, not surprised about the ruling. Kind of surprised about this quote though: Justice Ruth Ginsburg said “some restriction on expression is the inherent and intended effect of every grant of copyright.”
- anamax 15y agoWhat are you surprised about? While we can argue about whether the benefits from said restriction are worth the costs, it's clearly the case that copyright is intended to restrict expression and necessarily does so.
- rayiner 15y agoThat quote is a perfectly accurate statement of what the Constitution says. Copyright inherently restricts freedom of expression, to the extent that reproducing work is a form of expression. The Framers wrote both the Copyright Clause and the 1st Amendment into the Constitution and left the courts to balance the two clauses, which is exactly what happened here.
- kls 15y agoJustice Elena Kagan recused, said Congress’ move to re-copyright the works to comport with an international treaty was more important I am really tired of the arguments that sacrifice sovereignty for globalist endeavors. Our laws are supposed to provide a framework of government for American people and businesses, not ensure the rights of foreign works. The rights of US citizens should be the foremost concern of a US legislator and when it comes to satisfying a treaty compromising those rights the treaty or international precedence should be thrown out the window. I feel like I am now living in bizarro world where no right is safe. I mean the fact that public domain, the resting place for IP is no longer the end of the line is about as strange an interpretation of public domain as one could come up with. They are laying the same groundwork for this international treaty argument on gun rights as well.
- Volpe 15y ago> ... sacrifice sovereignty for globalist endeavors. Can anyone from the US really make this point with a straight face. A little hypocritical to say the least.
- ColinDabritz 15y agoIf this was the position of the government it may be hypocritical. As individuals we have our own views. As a US citizen I dislike our interference around the world, especially when it is without the support of the global community. I also dislike the use of international treaties as a 'work around' to our sovereign law. While I do believe in respecting the treaties we make, I dislike the practice of intentionally making treaties that force us to change our laws as a 'hack' of our government processes. Where is the hypocrisy?
- potatolicious 15y ago> "I dislike the practice of intentionally making treaties that force us to change our laws as a 'hack' of our government processes." Isn't this the whole point of treaties though? What good is a treaty if member states don't have to change incompatible laws to conform with it? What's the point of, say, signing a human rights treaty, without changing currently compatible laws to fall in line?
- dangero 15y agotl;dr; There are some foreign works that are still copyrighted overseas, but the copyright has expired in the US. This ruling allows the Congress to reinstate the copyrights for particular works so that the copyrights apply for the full length of their term in the local country that they were originally created/copyrighted in.
- tobylane 15y agoIs there any limit to what it does past this? If the intention is to fit in with the worldwide agreement by doing what you describe, it should be written in a way that it can't be used to extend Mickey Mouse's protection or something shortly before it.
- jellicle 15y agoThat is utter insanity. And only two Justices understand. This is a dark day for the U.S., and the vast majority of the population neither knows nor cares. It's all up to Lessig now.
- flyt 15y agoIt's all up to you.
- B0Z 15y ago(US Citizen) The title of this post is a bit misleading and I'm having a hard time seeing why there's a problem or disagreement here. The ruling was specifically focused on foreign works as they relate to the Berne Convention. This international treaty binds signatory nations to the copyright protections provided in countries where the original art was created. It would apply to both US copyright holders to protect their works abroad and foreign copyright holders where their works are used here. The Wikipedia page on the Berne Convention has some really interesting facts on this treaty and you should read it before voicing opposition to the SCOTUS ruling or claiming "American Exceptionalism" is being run over by a truck. This is not a bad ruling and the 6-2 vote suggests 1 judge appointed by a liberal President agrees with the argument. Ne, if you get into the opinion (link below) you'll find that two conservative appointees dissented while the remaining justices agreed (sans Kagan who recused). The point is that this was hardly a "party line" or ideological divide. The official opinion here: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/10-545.pdf http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/10-545.pdf Some worthy quotations from the Wikipedia page found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Literary_and_Artistic_Works http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_for_the_Protec... Before the Berne Convention, national copyright laws usually only applied for works created within each country. Consequently, a work published in United Kingdom (UK) by a British national would be covered by copyright there, but could be copied and sold by anyone in France. Likewise, a work published in France by a French national could be copyrighted there, but could be copied and sold by anyone in the UK. Dutch publisher Albertus Willem Sijthoff, who rose to prominence in the trade of translated books, wrote to Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands in 1899 in opposition to the convention over concerns that its international restrictions would stifle the country's print industry. The United States initially refused to become a party to the Convention, since that would have required major changes in its copyright law, particularly with regard to moral rights, removal of the general requirement for registration of copyright works and elimination of mandatory copyright notice. This led to the Universal Copyright Convention in 1952 to accommodate the wishes of the United States. But on March 1, 1989, the U.S. Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988 was enacted, and the United States Senate ratified the treaty, making the U.S. a party to the Berne Convention, and making the Universal Copyright Convention nearly obsolete. Editorial. I believe in American exceptionalism on a number of fronts including some trade issues. But, the notion that any individual or group of people from one country can merely disregard the copyrights of and profit from works created in another is ludicrous. I feel bad for the plantiffs -- the orchestra members who brought the suit. They have been treated unfair, not by the SCOTUS, but by a general failure of US enforcement of foreign copyright as provided by the treaty. Just my $0.02
- esonderegger 15y agoWhat surprised me most about the article is that Lawrence Golan, one of the plaintiffs, implied that his orchestra had not been paying licensing fees for works by Prokofiev and Shostakovich. Are they really playing from unedited copies of the original manuscript? For those unfamiliar, in the classical music world, musicians almost always play from editions of the original work. Those editions are eligible for copyright protection as derivative works of the original. As a result, if you perform a Kalmus edition of a work by Bach, you would owe Kalmus royalties, even though the original work by Bach is in the public domain. Obviously, since much of the classical music repertoire was composed before 1923, anyone is free to make their own editions of popular works, provided they have access to the actual original. In practice, however, very few do. This is because creating a definitive edition of a musical work without misprints is painstaking work that requires considerable amounts of time and expertise.