ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline
Volume 12, Number 48
June 2, 2003

In This Issue: Supreme Court issues intellectual property law decision

The U.S. Supreme Court on June 2 issued its opinion in Dastar Corp. v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp., a case in which ALA participated as a "friend of the court" in support of Dastar Corporation.  The Court has ruled unanimously 8-0 (Justice Breyer did not participate in the case) in favor of Dastar, ruling that the company did not act illegally when it repackaged and distributed a television documentary which had entered the public domain.  The reasoning of the court is extremely helpful to supporters of balanced intellectual property laws.  
 
The case involves Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act, a federal law which mostly has to do with trademark but was being used in this instance to apply to an alleged use and re-use of materials in the public domain.  In the 1950's Twentieth Century Fox Film (Fox) had produced a television documentary on World War II.  Fox did not renew the copyright and the film entered into the public domain.  Dastar copied large chunks of the documentary, added some of its own footage, and distributed it as its own without attributing the source of some of the footage.  Fox sued and won in the appeals court, a ruling that the Supreme Court overturned today in a decision that is significant for database protection specifically and for preserving the public domain in general.  

Jonathan Band, ALA's outside counsel who wrote the amicus brief, explained that in its ruling in favor of Dastar, the Supreme Court focused on the meaning of the word "origin" in Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act, and concluded that the goods in question here -- the videotapes -- originated with Dastar, not Fox.   The Court said that to treat the origin of communication products as the entity that created the underlying intellectual property "would create a species of mutant copyright law" that would impinge upon the "public's 'federal right to "copy and to use"' expired copyrights."  Thus, Band stated, "The opinion sharply limits the ability of copyright holders to use Section 43(a) as a super-copyright law."
 
The Supreme Court also stated that if Congress wanted to create an addition to the copyright law, it would have to do so explicitly.  Those who have been seeking database protection legislation in Congress might interpret this statement as authorizing it to enact database legislation.  However, Band cautioned, the Court in its decision also noted the limits on Congress's intellectual property power -- it may not create perpetual patent or copyright protection. 

Joining ALA as signatories to an amici curiae (friends of the court) brief in February 2003 were the American Association of Law Libraries, Association of Research Libraries, Medical Library Association, and Special Libraries Association.



******
ALAWON (ISSN 1069-7799) is a free, irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office. All materials subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credits.

To subscribe to ALAWON, send the message: subscribe ala-wo [your_firstname] [your_lastname] to listproc@ala.org or go to http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon.  To unsubscribe to ALAWON, send the message: unsubscribe ala-wo to listproc@ala.org. ALAWON archives at http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. 

ALA Washington Office, 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Suite 403, Washington, D.C. 20004-1701; phone: 202.628.8410 or 800.941.8478 toll-free; fax: 202.628.8419; e-mail: alawash@alawash.org; Web site: http://www.ala.org/washoff.  Executive Director: Emily Sheketoff. Office of Government Relations: Lynne Bradley, Director; Camille Bowman, Mary Costabile, Don Essex, Patrice McDermott and Miriam Nisbet. Office for Information Technology Policy: Rick Weingarten, Director; Jennifer Hendrix, Carrie Russell, Claudette Tennant. ALAWON Editor: Bernadette Murphy.