Thread: Supreme Court Says Congress May Re-Copyright Public Domain Works
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Old 01-20-2012, 01:54 PM   #65
Kali Yuga
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ginger Irving View Post
Who exactly gets to own the work of millions of long-dead authors?
If the author is dead, then it goes to their estate.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Ginger Irving
The ownership lawsuits alone, for millions and millions of works, will be an epic, chaotic nightmare to behold.
Not really. At least some of these people are already collecting their royalties or similar payments. The works put back under copyright have international protection -- it's just that due to some quirks in previous US copyright laws, the US did not offer them protection.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Ginger Irving
What if the author has no heirs, or nobody wants to claim ownership of their work?
Then it's an orphaned work. There's a lot of that around, and no consensus yet on how to handle them. On one hand, it's a public good to make those works available again; on the other, you don't want to create a massive loophole that lets people infringe on active copyrights.
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