As a followup to this post concerning the Kahle lawsuit, an update about another lawsuit -- this time concerning foreign works.
This lawsuit, Golan v. Ashcroft, filed in 2001, is attempting to restore to the public domain foreign works that were in the public domain, but have subsequently been "lost" to the public through the reintroduction of copyrights.
These include foreign works that were published post-1923, such as the silent film Metropolis, the works of Stravinsky, and Orson Welles's The Third Man.
A website has recently been set up to collect the stories of those who have been harmed through the restoration of these copyrights. This project is not limited to libraries and their collections, but is intended to find the harm to the whole American public.
Stories so far posted include the inability to play Peter and the Wolf at children's concerts and a corrected edition of a piece of music is unable to be published.
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