Interesting Copyright Doc

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Interesting Copyright Doc

Postby mantis713 on June 14th, 2011, 6:53 pm

THought you might find this interesting.

The “Thai Basic Course Volume 2” sound recordings fall under both US state statutes and common law
protection. The discussion below will explain why these US government created and published
recordings are in the public domain.
Per US Copyright Statute 17 section 301:
(c) With respect to sound recordings fixed before February 15, 1972, any rights or remedies
under the common law or statutes of any State shall not be annulled or limited by this title
until February 15, 2067. The preemptive provisions of subsection (a) shall apply to any such
rights and remedies pertaining to any cause of action arising from undertakings commenced on and
after February 15, 2067. Notwithstanding the provisions of section 303, no sound recording fixed
before February 15, 1972, shall be subject to copyright under this title before, on, or after
February 15, 2067.
State Statutes
State statutes generally restrict any copying of pre-1972 recordings without the permission of the
recording owner for commercial uses. The New York State laws are given as a typical example:
§ 275.05 Manufacture of unauthorized recordings in the second degree.
A person is guilty of the manufacture of unauthorized recordings in
the second degree when such person:
1. knowingly, and without the consent of the owner, transfers or
causes to be transferred any sound recording, with the intent to rent or
sell, or cause to be rented or sold for profit, or used to promote the
sale of any product, such article to which such recording was
transferred, or
2. transports within this state, for commercial advantage or private
financial gain, a recording, knowing that the sounds have been
reproduced or transferred without the consent of the owner; provided,
however, that this section shall only apply to sound recordings
initially fixed prior to February fifteenth, nineteen hundred
seventy-two.
Manufacture of unauthorized recordings in the second degree is a class
A misdemeanor.
The “Thai Basic Course Volume 2” recordings are not offered in any commercial manner and thus do
not fall under the statute. They are strictly tagged for noncommercial educational use only. Also note
below that the statute only applies to “persons” as defined in § 275.00. As far as can be determined, the
master recording owner is still the US Government which is defined as a “federation of states” and not
a legal specified “person”. Thus the statute does not apply
§ 275.00 Definitions.
The following definitions are applicable to this article:
1. "Person" means any individual, firm, partnership, corporation or
association.
2. "Owner" means (a) the person who owns, or has the exclusive license
in the United States to reproduce or the exclusive license in the United
States to distribute to the public copies of the sounds fixed in a
master phonograph record, master disc, master tape, master film or any
other device used for reproducing sounds on phonograph records, discs,
tapes, films, videocassettes, or any other articles upon which sound is
recorded, and from which the transferred recorded sounds are directly
derived; or (b) the person who owns the rights to record or authorize
the recording of a live performance.
3. "Fixed" means embodied in a recording by or under the authority of
the author, so that the matter embodied is sufficiently permanent or
stable to permit it to be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise
communicated for a period of more than transitory duration.
4. "Performer" means the person or persons appearing in a performance.
5. "Performance" means, whether live before an audience or transmitted
by wire or through the air by radio or television, a recitation,
rendering, or playing of a series of images, musical, spoken, or other
sounds, or a combination of images and sounds, in an audible sequence.
6. "Recording" means an original phonograph record, disc, tape, audio
or video cassette, wire, film, or any other medium on such sounds,
images, or both sounds and images are or can be recorded or otherwise
stored, or a copy or reproduction that duplicates in whole or in part
the original.
Common Law Protection
Since 1909 (US Copyright Law section 7) copyright may not be held by publication of the US
government. In the case of DuPuy v. Post Telegram Co. 210 F. 883 (3rd Cir. 1914) held that a
publication of the US government may not be copyrighted. The recordings collected here were from
actual tapes published by a US government agency.
Since 1979, the US copyright law has become more explicit that works created by government
employees in the course of their normal work activities may not be copyrighted. This is now a long
standing and commonly held legal position. Thus the US government created “Thai Basic Course
Volume 2” sound files are in the states' public domain.
mantis713
 
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