Collecting copyright horror stories to restore the public domain

By Cory Doctorow at 11:52 pm Friday, May 21

An important piece of copyright litigation is in the offing: Golan v Ashcroft challenges Congress's "restoration of copyright" to thousands of works that were in the public domain as of 1994. The Golan legal team is collecting your horror stories about being denied access to works that were snatched from the public domain; they're publishing the stories as they come in:

To win the lawsuit we need your help: we need examples of how people have been harmed by this removal of works from the public domain. You can help us if you have ever wanted to use:

* a foreign sound recording made before February 15, 1972; or
* a foreign work published in or after 1923 that was in the public domain in the U.S. (due to lack of copyright notice, renewal, or national eligilibility of the author), including:

* works of Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Khachaturian, and other foreign composers (search for restored works)
* numerous classic British, French, German, and other foreign films (including several Hitchcock films, Faust, Metropolis, and The Red Balloon, Kurosawa's Ikiru, The Third Man, and Intermezzo)
* or any other foreign book, photograph, song, or work subject to a "restored" copyright
* although registration is optional, you can search the U.S. Copyright Office for restored works

Link (Thanks, Jason!)