Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Berk
On Monday, the appeals court reversed the lower court's ruling and said there's no problem with the First Amendment because copyright law "addresses a substantial or important governmental interest." This is, plainly speaking, ridiculous. The argument effectively says that the government can violate the basic principles of the First Amendment any time it wants, so long as it shows a "substantial or important government interest." But that makes no sense. The whole point of the First Amendment was to protect citizens' interests against situations where the government's interests went against citizens' interests. |
There are a number of
exceptions to the First Amendment, but this judgement is ridiculously and dangerously broad and needs to be struck down by a higher court.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dmaul1114
Maybe entering the public domain should just mean that that book/movie/tv show/music etc. can be copied and distributed freely.
But not that people can freely use those characters etc. for new products etc.--if that's what the Mickey Mouse case is about.
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This sort of use would fall under the protection of Trademarks, which are very different to copyright and already have no term limitation.