Fox Sues Over Reuse Of Public-Domain Documentary

leabre writes " Yahoo! Intellectual Property News is reporting that a small video distributer is being sued (U.S. Supreme Court) over reusing a work (WWII documentary) whose copyright had expired in the 70s, without giving credit to 20th Century Fox on the now public-domain work. What's more, Fox wants the courts to expand the copyright (which it let fall into the public domain more than 20 years ago) so they can recover damages from the distributer... " Read on for more (including several links) about this case. favorite quote: 'Justice Sandra Day O'Connor told Cendali that her client let the copyright lapse for the documentary, in the 1970s, and now wants the court to expand copyright protection so it can recover damages from Dastar. "The defense replies 'It was in the public domain,' O'Connor said. 'Of course they had a right to copy it.'" The outcome of this should be watched closely as it has the potential to further distort our fair use rights. There are more links on EFF , Dept. of Justice, and the Supreme court filing (appeal)[pdf]."

Comments

Interesting

[leviramsey]

According to the article, the Bush administration (presumably Attorney-General Ashcroft) supports Dastar, the company being sued by Fox. Probably means that the Justice Department has filed an amicus brief saying (in legalese), "Fox is out of their minds if they think this illegal".

Actually, this could be a good thing

[fidget42]

If Fox wins this, then the estate of Rudyard Kipling can sue Disney for their Jungle Book movies, or the estate of Robert Louis Stevenson can sue over the various versions of Treasure Island. Both of these were in the public domain when Disney made thier movies so if works can be brought back out of the public domain it could spell the end of some major corporations.

Dastar's derivative and other PD derivatives.

[jbn-o]

Was it ethical? No. I don't beleive so. They were using the work of a whole host of other people -- filmographers, recording engineers, writers, etc. -- to gain a cheap entry into the business. This is the equivalent of taking a novel by, say, Charles Dickens, editing it and perhaps adding another chapter, changing the title and claiming it as a new novel written by yourself. Really sleazy, IMHO.

I disagree. I don't think it's sleazy at all for three reasons:

1. When a work enters the public domain, you should be free do almost anything you want with the work, commercial distribution included (I mention this because Fox is making an issue of the amount of money Dastar spent versus how much they made on their derivative). Fox should have known what choosing to forgo their copyright powers on "Crusade in Europe" would entail. Fox bringing up how much money Dastar made with their derivative suggests to me Fox doesn't think it had enough time to make money from this documentary or that Fox wishes it could take the money Dastar made with "Campaigns in Europe".
2. Dastar is putting their name on "Campaigns in Europe" so anyone, as Justice Souter said, "can go to Dastar and raise the devil -- they know exactly who to blame." (a salient point you did not mention in your summary).
3. More generally, we all use published expressions made somewhere else to make new published expressions. There really are no new ideas under the sun.

I would not have guessed that anyone on /. would object to distributing a labeled derivative of a work in the public domain.

But I look forward to seeing what new limitations on deriving new works from works in the public domain the SCOTUS will impose on us. The way I see it, this case is only a copyright case in that it has the chance to severely curtail our freedoms with PD works.

Referring to your comment about Charles Dickens' works: I wonder how much money is Dickens' estate is out from all the productions of his stories that are in the PD? Society generally doesn't think it's bad if Masterpiece Theatre, say, decides to air a new movie based on some Dickens work (copying even the dialogue and character names) without prepending "Charles Dickens'" to the name of the movie. Similarly, lots of people make new works based on Shakespeare's stories and characters without explicitly acknowledging where the story or characters come from. Welcome to the PD.

Re:Mixed feelings

[dfgdfgdfg]

this small startup video company takes an 8 hour long documentary based on Eisenhower's memoirs, cuts an hour of footage, and adds a half hour of (the article says new, but considering the way this company operates, probablly also recycled) footage then retitles it with an amazingly similar title and dumps it into discount stores' cheap video bins at a fraction of the cost the original documentary sells for.

If they claim on the box of the video that they where the authors of the whole film, shouldn't Fox be able to accuse them of libel? Since they sell a commercial product, that should be possible whithout invoking copyright law. I think it has happened before that publishers had to change passages of books after receiving complaints that what was presented as fact (e.g. in a biography) was false.