On 4/11/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Bridgeman v. Corel was a district court case, never litigated at the appeals court level, and therefore is not a strong precedent. It is, as far as I have been able to determine, a fairly unusual result not likely to be followed by other courts.
Therefore, relying on Bridgeman v. Corel for anything is likely wishful thinking.
We do rely on it quite strongly at present; in fact, it is explicitly cited in our "PD-Art" template, which is used on thousands of pictures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:PD-Art
From the Wikipedia article about the case:
"Several federal courts have followed the ruling in Bridgeman, though it has yet to be endorsed specifically by the Supreme Court. Moreover, this case has not been cited by any appellate-level circuit court meaning that it has no mandatory legal authority and its persuasive legal authority, as a district court opinion, has not been confirmed. However, the Supreme Court's ruling in Feist v. Rural, explicitly rejecting difficulty of labor or expense as a consideration in copyrightability, seems to support the fundamental reasoning behind Bridgeman." (That case was about copyrightability of phone directories.)
I do believe that for two-dimensional works, the principle "public domain stays public domain" is very much one worth defending in court, if necessary.
Erik