ACLU Fights to Put Works by Picasso, Orwell, Fellini, Hitchcock Back in the Public Domain

Not too much going on art law wise this summer (at least so far), but there is an interesting copyright law case that will be heard this fall by the US Supreme Court. Interestingly, it is rare in that it does not deal with fair use.

The case, Golan v.  Holder, basically asks whether a congressional act violates the First Amendment when the act grants copyright protection to foreign works that were previously in the public domain in the United States. The ACLU has just filed an amicus brief (friend of the court brief) with the US Supreme Court, siding with artists and arguing that the law places an enormous burden on speech, and is therefore unconstitutional.

If upheld, the current law would affect the following works:

• Symphonies by Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, and Rachmaninoff.
• Books by J.R.R. Tolkien, Joseph Conrad, George Orwell, Virginia Woolf, C.S. Lewis, and H.G. Wells.
• T.S. Eliot’s classic poem, The Waste Land.
• Films by Federico Fellini and Alfred Hitchcock, including the 1934 version of Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much; and
• Artwork by M.C. Escher and Picasso, including Picasso’s Guernica.

According to the ACLU, “the ACLU supports copyright in general, and it is why the Supreme Court has said that copyright can be an ‘engine of free expression.’ But that does not mean that all copyright laws are consistent with the First Amendment. When Congress crosses the line, as it did with Section 514, courts must be able to step in to ensure that the proper balance between copyright and free speech is maintained.”

You can read the ACLU’s amicus brief here. More background information on Golan v. Holder here.