[Upd-discuss] Public Domain is a Crime

[Yannick Delbecque]

[2005-12-16 18:28, Elizabeth Stark]
> This reminds me of a (US) case I recently read that ruled that a video of a film
> that had fallen into the public domain due to lack of renewal was still a valid
> derivative work and was thus protectable under copyright law. (Maljack Prods.
> v. UAV Corp.) The creators of the video had merely digitized the soundtrack
> ("sweetened, equalized, balanced, made into stereo" as they claimed) and
> changed the aspect ratio of the film, but the court ruled that this was
> sufficient to constitute a derivative work. Thus by extension, even DVD
> versions of PD films may still be under copyright. I'm not sure if there's been
> a case on the DVD issue in particular, but it would be interesting to see.

I must say that this case only imply that in the US, such a "derivation" would be considered a new work. As far as know, I still can do wathever I want with the public domain content of this DVD here in Canada. I'm no lawer, I've heard from one that here a simple reedition (say with some added "sugar") of a public domain book is not considered a significant derivative. 

> I find this particularly troubling because many PD films are not available in
> digital format (of course we should encourage digitization efforts such as by
> the internet archive), and thus since putting a PD film on DVD requires
> audio/video digitization and changing of aspect ratio, PD films released on DVD
> can regain copyright protection. Even if a court were to rule that mere
> digitization alone was not sufficient, those creating such DVDs could easily
> "sweeten" the soundtrack to make it protectable...

If I correct in what I said above, we just have to reformat the DVD in any country where it is not considered a significant derivative work and send a new DVD to the US.  

This indicate the importance of fighting the uniformisation of the new stronger rules or conceptions of derivarive work in our local context. 

-- 
Yannick Delbecque - http://yannick.delbecque.org
Cogitateurs-Agitateurs - http://cogitateurs-agitateurs.org
FACIL, pour l'appropriation collective de l'informatique libre - http://facil.qc.ca