Why The Golan Case Matters: Pulling Works From The Public Domain Is A Massive Tax On Culture

Techdirt: "We've been covering the 'Golan' case through the courts for quite some time now. This is an important case concerning the contours of copyright law and the locking up of the public domain. If you don't recall, the case involved whether or not it violates the Constitution to pull content out of the public domain. Certain foreign works that were in the public domain were put back under copyright due to a trade agreement the US signed a while back. Many who relied on those public domain works were left out in the cold. A district court agreed that this appeared to violate the First Amendment. However, the appeals court went the other way, with some troubling arguments about how it was okay to pull works out of the public domain, effectively because US copyright holders insisted that without this, foreign countries would 'retaliate' against them, and thus it was okay for Congress to make this call. The Supreme Court has now agreed to hear the case.