[Foundation-l] Amicus Brief Filed in Golan v. Holder: Fighting for the Public Domain

[Ryan Kaldari]

On 6/22/11 7:13 PM, geni wrote:
> Ohh bad example. You haven't consulted commons policy have you? We
> don't carry stuff on commons unless it is PD in the US and it's
> country of origin.

I think you're missing the point here. This court decision isn't about 
allowing us to ignore other country's copyright laws. Due to the URAA 
and the fact that the U.S. doesn't follow the rule of the shorter term, 
there are hundreds of thousands of works that are public domain in the 
country of origin, but re-copyrighted in the U.S. until doomsday 
(basically every foreign work who's copyright has expired since 1996). 
For example, the works of Mahatma Ghandi are public domain in India and 
most of the rest of the world, but are copyrighted in the U.S. until 
2055 thanks to the URAA. Same for the paintings of Paul Klee, the 
wildlife illustrations of Henrik Gronvold, the writings of Leon Trotsky, 
etc.

Ryan Kaldari