Re: State Susceptibility to Suit for Copyright and Patent Infringement

Dan Burk, Terry Carroll, and Alan Kabat all claim that a work by Raphael fell into the public domain long ago. Would they care to elaborate on why they believe this? Does common-law copyright protection only begin with the creation of statutory copyright (but what of a painting done in the 18th century in England or in the early 19th century in the US)? Did copyright protection for paintings not exist until the law explicitly recognized that they were eligible for statutory protection? Does repeated publication of the work without the authorization of the copyright owner over time remove copyright protection?

In short, is the painting _really_ in the public domain - or is it just very unlikely that the copyright owner (one assumes the heirs of Raphael) will sue? If it is in the public domain, how did it get there?

Peter B. Hirtle
pbh6[_at_]cornell.edu Received on Mon Aug 03 1998 - 16:19:01 GMT