Wired: "Supreme Court Says Congress May Re-Copyright Public Domain Works"
From the article:
The top court was ruling on a petition by a group of orchestra conductors, educators, performers, publishers and film archivists who urged the justices to reverse an appellate court that ruled against the group, which has relied on artistic works in the public domain for their livelihoods.
They claimed that re-copyrighting public works would breach the speech rights of those who are now using those works without needing a license. There are millions of decades-old works at issue. Some of the well-known ones include H.G. Wells’ Things to Come; Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and the musical compositions of Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky.
The court, however, was sympathetic to the plaintiffs’ argument. Writing for the majority, Justice Ruth Ginsburg said “some restriction on expression is the inherent and intended effect of every grant of copyright.” But the top court, with Justice Elena Kagan recused, said Congress’ move to re-copyright the works to comport with an international treaty was more important.
Emphasis very much mine. Not that the harmonization of certain international standards or regulations is, in itself, a bad thing - but when a desire for economic efficiency (the motivation behind moves to harmonize things like intellectual property standards) trumps local individual and group rights of expression we need to step back and examine the values driving our decisions with regard to intellectual property standards (a sentiment also appropriate and timely, given today’s SOPA protests).
