The Golan v. Holder Decision

Decided to listen to Gordon P. Firemark, Esq.’s Entertainment Law Podcast Update in order to beef up on my intellectual and legal knowledge. During the podcast one case truly stood out.  Although the entertainment podcast was riddled with juicy and informative legal talk dealing with music licensing, video game combat helicopters, Velvet Underground vs Andy Warhol's Banana and copyright protection. However, it was the discussion of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Golan v. Holder and the precedence it sets for future copyright cases that raised my eyebrows. So I took it upon myself to brush up on this case.

In Golan v. Holder, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the Tenth Circuit court decision allowing for public domain works to be copyrighted anew. Golan was trying to challenge the constitutionality of the application of Uruguay Round Agreement Act-URAA (enacted for the purpose of transforming GATT into the World Trade Organization), which was felt to be impeding on there First Amendment right to use public domain works and violated the “limited Time language in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, the Copyright Clause. However, the U.S. Supreme Court held that application of the URAA is constitutional because “Limited Time” verbiage in the copyright clause of the constitution does not prevent the extension of copyright protection on works that were previously in public domain. Therefore, this decision allows for U.S. legislation to continue running in accordance with the requirements of the Berne Convention Implementations Act of 1988.  Realignment with Berne Convention Act, which was enacted to protect literary and artistic works, means that the U.S. would have to grant copyrights on foreign works that were never copyrighted before in the U.S or were available through public domain. Furthermore, these works will continue to have protection so long as they hold copyright protection within their own country.

So what does this all mean? Ramifications can be endless, right? However, at this moment, it means that many legitimate users will now have to pay for licensing of public domain foreign works because they are now newly protected. I believe it was mentioned in the podcast that application of the URAA to copyright law would prevent people from wanting to create, copyright or patent. However, I believe it was Tamara in the podcast, who said that, “…creative people will find ways to create…” and I am inclined to agree. If you are truly creative this will not impede you from being creative and original. Furthermore, this application means my trademarks and copyrights would hold the same equal amount of protection in any participating country governed by the URAA agreement. I have no problem with that. 

As far as for me, I'm not too concern. I feel there should be equal rights for copyright protections throughout each country that conducts business with the U.S. and vice versa. Promotes me to create.