STANFORD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Supreme Court of the United States today granted the petition for a writ of certiorari filed by lawyers from Stanford Law School’s Fair Use Project (FUP) and Wheeler Trigg O’Donnell LLP and will review the constitutionality of a federal statute that has removed thousands of foreign works from the Public Domain and placed them under copyright protection. The case presents a two-pronged constitutional challenge to the 1994 law passed by Congress—an amendment to the Copyright Act, the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA): the case will test whether Congress has the authority to remove works from the Public Domain under the “Progress Clause” and whether the 1994 law violates the First Amendment rights of those who performed, adapted, restored and distributed works which had previously been in the Public Domain—works that include symphonies by Sergei Prokofiev, Igor Stravinsky, and Dmitri Shostakovich; books by C.S. Lewis, Virginia Woolf, and H.G. Wells; films by Federico Fellini, Alfred Hitchcock, and Jean Renoir; and artwork by M.C. Escher and Pablo Picasso, including Picasso’s masterpiece Guernica.
“I’m thrilled the Supreme Court took the case,” said FUP Executive Director Anthony Falzone, who is counsel of record for the petitioners. “This statute throws into question one of the most basic premises of intellectual property: once a work of authorship is placed in the Public Domain, it belongs to the public, and remains the property of the public—free for anyone to use for any purpose. That principle was respected for more than 200 years, because it represents a critical limit on the intellectual property ‘monopoly’ the Framers authorized. What Congress did here represents a huge departure from those basic principles with substantial constitutional ramifications.”
Background:
The Fair Use Project filed the petition in October, 2010 on behalf of orchestra conductors, educators, performers, film archivists and motion picture distributors who relied for years on the free availability of works in the Public Domain, which they performed, adapted, restored and distributed. The 1994 amendment to the Copyright Act, the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA), removed these works and many others from the Public Domain and placed them under copyright protection in conjunction with the implementation of intellectual property treaties. That amendment affected the copyright status of thousands of works by foreign authors that had been in the Public Domain in the United States for decades.
Petitioners Lawrence Golan, Estate of Richard Kapp, S.A. Publishing Co., Inc., Symphony of the Canyons, Ron Hall, and John McDonough originally filed suit in 2001, contending that in enacting the URAA Congress exceeded its Article I power and violated the First Amendment. A lower court rejected both claims and dismissed the case in 2005. In a 2007 decision, the Tenth Circuit revived petitioners’ First Amendment challenge. Following that decision, the same lower court held the URAA was unconstitutional under the First Amendment. The Tenth Circuit reversed that decision last summer, holding the URAA did not violate the First Amendment. Today, the Supreme Court agreed to review that decision.
The specific constitutional provisions at issue in the case are the Progress Clause (Article I, Section 8, Clause 8) and the First Amendment. The Progress Clause—sometimes called the “Copyright Clause”—gives Congress the power to “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” Petitioners contend that removing material from the Public Domain violates the “limited times” restriction and the URAA as enacted does not “promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts.” Petitioners contend the URAA violates the First Amendment because it is not narrowly tailored to any important government interest.
The case is: Golan, et al., v. Holder (Attorney General), et al. (10-545).
A copy of the cert. petition is available here http://blogs.law.stanford.edu/newsfeed/files/2010/10/Golan-v.-Holder-Petition-for-Cert.pdf.
About the Fair Use Project
The Fair Use Project (the “FUP”) was founded in 2006 as part of the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society. Its purpose is to provide legal support to a range of projects designed to clarify, and extend, the boundaries of "fair use" in order to enhance creative freedom. The Project’s homepage is at: http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/taxonomy/term/374.
About the Center for Internet and Society
The Center for Internet and Society is a public interest technology law and policy program at Stanford Law School and a part of the Law, Science and Technology Program at the law school. The Center’s homepage is at: http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/.
About Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell
Wheeler Trigg O’Donnell (WTO) is a civil litigation firm located in Denver, Colorado. Its 62 lawyers help clients resolve disputes that threaten their businesses, brands, products, people, and customers. WTO lawyers handle trial, appeals, arbitrations, and related areas of complex civil litigation, including class actions and multidistrict litigation, often as national or regional trial counsel, for many of the nation’s best-known companies in a wide variety of industries. Its homepage is at: http://www.wtotrial.com/.
About Anthony Falzone
Anthony Falzone is executive director of the Fair Use Project at Stanford Law School and lecturer in law. He is an intellectual property litigator who has represented media and technology clients in a wide array of intellectual property disputes including copyright, trademark, rights of publicity, and patent matters. He speaks frequently on copyright and fair use issues. Prior to joining Stanford Law School, Falzone was a partner in the San Francisco office of Bingham McCutchen LLP.
About Julie Ahrens
Julie Ahrens is associate director of Stanford Law School’s Fair Use Project, where she represents writers, filmmakers, musicians, and others who rely on fair use in creating their art, documentaries, scholarship, critiques, or comments. Before joining Stanford, Julie was a litigation attorney in the San Francisco office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
About Stanford Law School
Stanford Law School (www.law.stanford.edu) is one of the nation’s leading institutions for legal scholarship and education. Its alumni are among the most influential decision makers in law, politics, business, and high technology. Faculty members argue before the Supreme Court, testify before Congress, produce outstanding legal scholarship and empirical analysis, and contribute regularly to the nation's press as legal and policy experts. Stanford Law School has established a new model for legal education that provides rigorous interdisciplinary training, hands-on experience, global perspective and focus on public service, spearheading a movement for change.