Works Going Into the Public Domain (in Some Countries) in 2011

The first tweet of the New Year from the always-interesting Boho Lawyer drew my attention to the fact that January 1 was Public Domain Day.  Alas, President Obama is not issuing a proclamation to celebrate the occasion.  Public Domain Day is the the brainchild of Duke University's Center for the Study of the Public Domain.  There is a lot of interesting material of their site, including a list of prominent authors, some of whose important works are entering the public domain today in some jurisdictions.  The caveats are fascinating to read, illustrating, in the words of the Center, "how fiendishly complex copyright laws can be."

Key point: thanks the the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, no works will be newly entering the public domain in the United States until 2019.

Should Congress Extend Copyright Protection to Fashion Designs?

While this blog focuses primarily on writing and writers, I do take an occasional frolic and detour into the public policies underlying copyright and copyright's effect on creative artists in other fields.  In this regard, you may have read that Senator Schumer and others have introduced legislation that would provide a new three-year term of copyright protection to fashion designs.  The text of the bill, known as the Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act, is reproduced here.  The Judiciary Committee unanimously approved the bill earlier this month.

Clothing designs have never before been the subject of copyright protection in the United States (although fabric prints -- of sufficient originality -- can be).  A few years ago, Tyler Cowen, the always-interesting economics blogger, ran a fascinating post on how the fashion industry works without copyright and and wondered aloud "why the absence of IP protection has led to (apparently) acceptable results." Worth revisiting in light of the proposed new law.

And here is an informative article on the history of the Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act (from Louis Ederer and Maxwell Preston).

CopyLeft in 19th Century Germany?: Did an Absence of Copyright Laws Give Rise to a Dramatic Expansion of the German Economy?

A3WRGPJX2HAB I am a dyed-in-the-wool believer in the efficacy of copyright as an engine to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts," as Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution puts it.  That doesn't diminish my fascination with the theory championed by economic historian Eckhard Höffner, who argues that the absence of copyright laws in early 19th Century Germany stimulated an explosion in the number of books and academic papers published, giving rise to unprecedented industrial expansion.  I wonder what Höffner has to say about the role of lax intellectual property enforcement in China today.