[Foundation-l] Court: Congress can't put public domain back into copyright

[Chad]

On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 11:54 AM, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> This is of sufficient merit that I do it this way.
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>
> Aan u verzonden door GerardM via Google Reader: Court: Congress can't
> put public domain back into copyright via Ars Technica door
> nate at arstechnica.com (Nate Anderson) op 6-4-09
> In 1994, Congress jammed a batch of foreign books and movies back into
> the copyright closet. They had previously fallen into the public domain
> for a variety of technical reasons (the author hadn't renewed the
> rights with the US Copyright Office, the authors of older works hadn't
> included a copyright notice, etc.) and companies and individuals had
> already started reusing the newly public works. Did Congress have the
> right to put a stop to this activity by shoving the works back into
> copyright? On Friday, a federal court said no.
> "Traditional contours of copyright"
> 1994's Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA) brought US intellectual
> property law in line with that of other countries. Section 514 of URAA
> better aligned US copyright law with the international Berne
> Convention, one of the earliest international intellectual property
> treaties. Though Berne had first been signed back in 1886, the US
> hadn't joined up until a century later, in 1988.
> Click here to read the rest of this article
>
>
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The URL, for those wanting the rest of the story:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/04/court-congress-cant-put-public-domain-back-into-copyright.ars

-Chad