Re: Justice Stevens' dissent in Eldred

On Monday, January 27, 2003, at 08:59 AM, Joseph P. Bauer wrote:

> A minor point re: Eldred
>
> In his dissent, in Part VI of his opinion, Justice Stevens notes that
> "only one year's worth of creative work -- that copyrighted in 1923 --
> has fallen into the public domain during the last 80 years." That
> seems wrong to me. Even with all the interim extensions while the 1976
> Act was being considered, some works went into the public domain each
> year before 1978. Then, in 1978, works first published in 1921 went
> into the public domain. Did he made a mistake, or do I have this all
> wrong?
>

Justice Stevens made a mistake, and so did you. Works from early 1906 went into the
public domain throughout 1962--there was no January 1st rule then. Works from the
latter part of 1906 went into the public domain in January 1st, 1982. Thereafter a year's
worth of renewed copyrights in published works went into the public domain on January
1st every year until 1988.

Unrenewed copyrights went into the public domain every year until the automatic renewal
statute cut off this source of public domain.

U.S. Government works are always in the public domain, but Justice Stevens obviously
wasn't counting those.

Tim Phillips
<hNrOoLtIhTgEaMr[_at_]tEeSlPeApMaERhE.com> Received on Wed Jan 29 2003 - 00:52:35 GMT