Re: NBA v. Motorola

On 2/12/97, Dan L. Burk <burkdanl[_at_]lanmail.shu.edu> wrote:
>
> There are certainly several cases that hold it is not a copyright
> infringement to reproduce copyright protected material in order to
> get at unprotected public domain materials -- which would perhaps
> have been trade secrets had the author not disseminated them.

Can someone cite and summarize the cases to which Dan Burk refers. I'm wondering whether this principle may apply to the relationship between a public domain work of art (a singular and often inaccessible item) and the copyrighted reproductive photograph of it. Setting aside the claim (for the sake of argument) that many such reproductive photographs are, in themselves, NOT copyrightable, I wonder whether there is any weight to the contention that reproducing without license the copyrighted photo is the only way to utilize the public domain status of the underlying object.

Robert Baron
mailto:rabaron[_at_]pipeline.com Received on Sat Feb 22 1997 - 15:01:10 GMT