Saturday, April 04, 2009
Court Rules Part Of Copyright Act Unconstitutional
Techdirt: "A year and a half ago, we were quite surprised when the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals actually sided with Larry Lessig, concerning how a part of copyright law that pulled foreign works out of the public domain was potentially unconstitutional. This was in the 'Golan case,' the third of three big copyright cases Lessig had championed. The appeals court had sent the case back to the lower court, and that lower court has now decided that, indeed, a trade agreement (URAA) that pulled foreign content out of the public domain is unconstitutional as it violates the First Amendment."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Copyright law is a really big issue in the art world. There are proponents on both sides because this law both protects artists and inhibits them. No art is without inspiration as everything we do is built upon the work of others. We either reject the opinions in the art we are inspired by or we use them as a leaping off point. While I don't think that the article describes the specifics of the situation well, it is a really important issue that needs to be discussed.
Interesting article. It's amazing how controversial copyright law is these days; and, as artists, we need to realize the importance of it. As Chris has said, some of the best inspiration for art is other art in public domain, and where we draw the line between inspiration and copying CAN be fairly fine. So, we should be concerned with how we use that material ourselves, but also keep support of copyright for ourselves. We don't want others taking our work and art directly, but being inspired is never bad.
I'm interested to see where this goes.
Post a Comment