Related link: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-scotus3jun03,1,2585043.stor…
So 20th Century Fox made this movie, "Crusade in Europe," which many years ago entered the public domain. Along comes a company called Dastar and takes this PD movie, cuts in some other war footage and releases a new movie. Is there anything wrong with this? Did Dastar owe consumers or Fox notification that the original footage came from the Fox movie?
California courts had said yes, that consumers have a right to know the "origins of goods" -- and awarded ALL of Dastar's profits to Fox. Consider: Fox was awarded $1.5 million based on violation of nonexistent property rights: no one disputes that the original film is in the public domain.
Enter Justice Scalia and the Supreme Court, ruling 8-0 that there is a clear distinction between copyright and trademark, and that trademark exists to protect consumers from being tricked into thinking that Company A's product is really Company B's. (That is, Company A can't market a cheap, shoddy watch called Rolex, because the original Rolex Co. holds a trademark on that name.)
Trademark is NOT, the court argued, for the benefit of companies trying to stop competitors from selling competing products. Since no consumers are buying "Campaigns in Europe" thinking that are buying "Crusade in Europe," there is no trademark case, according to the courts.
"Once the patent or copyright monopoly has expired, the public may use the invention or work at will and without attribution," Scalia said.
were the supremes right?
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but attribution is a moral obligation
No doubt the "give them all your profits because you neglected to provide attribution" is just scummy. These guys have balls of steel. Still, I think that hackers have the moral high ground on attribution (e.g. the taboo against code forks) and should push it any chance we get.
but attribution is a moral obligation
Hey Lucas!
I agree, but the operative word here is "moral." It would have been nice of them to give reference to the earlier work, but the point is that copyright, not trademark, provides such protection. In any case "give them all your profits because you neglected to provide attribution" is extremely harsh when the work in question is out of copyright.
- richard
but attribution is a moral obligation
I agree that the Supremes did the right thing, but don't think that Dastar did. You have a moral obligation to give credit where it's due.