US Supreme Court rules on Golan v. Holder

[KGill]

"By a 6-to-2 vote, the justices rejected arguments based on the First Amendment and the Constitution’s copyright clause, saying that the public domain was not “a category of constitutional significance” and that copyright protections might be expanded even if they did not create incentives for new works to be created."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/busin ... .html?_r=1

Well, I can't say I'm surprised, though it's still a huge disappointment What will this mean for IMSLP? Will we have to reexamine our policies on US tagging of items published after 1922 that have fallen out of copyright?

[m.kowalski49]

From what I understood, they were going after everything that's Public Domain, and not what's after 1922. They've already taken care of that in 1996. I'm so irate, its ridiculous.

[Carolus]

I don't see much need to re-examine things, as we were operating under the assumption that the GATT/TRIPS amendments are in force. There are still cases where things are ineligible for "restoration." American works are completely ineligible, as are works of US citizens and works which are public domain in the country of origin (like a number of Baerenreiter titles which were not renewed). The basic thing is that all those [TB] items like Prokfoiev are going to be "temporarily" blocked for years to come. As you say, the ruling is extremely disappointing, but certainly not unexpected. I am frankly far more concerned about SOPA and the absolute totalitarian nonsense associated with it.

[synergy543]

In the article, they say "The precise number of affected works is unknown but “probably number in the millions,”".

How can this be relatively inconsequential?

[Carolus]

Because we were already operating under the assumption that the works which were "restored" under GATT/TRIPS are under copyright in the USA. If the decision had overturned the law, a number of works presently in "copyright jail" would have been set free. They will now be locked behind bars for a full 95 years from the date of first publication.