Sage Ross writes: The issue of whether originality is required to create a new copyright was addressed in the United States Supreme Court case Feist v. Rural Telephone (1991). There's a pretty good Wikipedia article on the case. The essence of the ruling is that some degree of creativity and originality is required to create a copyright interest. In general, organizations that believe "restorations" create new copyrights either don't accept Feist's reasoning (perhaps because they operate in a non-U.S. jurisdiction that honors "sweat of the brow" theory, as some believe the U.K. does), or they misunderstand what can count as creativity and originality. The problem for restorations is a philosophical one but also a straightforward one. If you are *restoring* something, you are doing something precisely the opposite of being "creative" or "original." Indeed, the more creative and original you are, the less your work counts as a restoration. (It may count as a derivative work, which qualifies for copyright protection, but museums and archives normally take their mission to be essentially preservationist, not essentially creative.) There are few arguments as confused as the ones I've seen that argue that restoration in itself ought to qualify as original or creative under Feist doctrine. At least the "sweat of the brow" theory doesn't suffer from that sort of philosophical confusion. Instead, it's simply bad copyright policy. --Mike