The view that you put forth is very much the conception of copyright that existed around the time that the Constitution was drafted. Copyrights were granted only for works by Americans and only applicable in America.

However, one of the key elements of adaptations in copyright law since then, something at the heart of the CTEA, is ‘harmonization’ of copyright legislation with the EU and other governing bodies. The idea that a copyright in one civilized nation was as good as any other, and should be applicable across borders.

It seems contrary to the intent of the Constitution for many reasons, but we really won’t know how it stands until the Spring.

-kd

It would seem to me that if I can go somewhere and get something out of the public domain I could bring it back to the US and distribute it as if it was in the public domain here too. Of course, that might not be how the law is written, but it is what would make sense to me.

I think that this is one of the strongest arguments in favor of the CTEA, that it synchronizes the US’s and Europe’s copyright terms.

Can somebody explain this to me a bit more fully? How can something be in the public domain in one place and not in another?

-Grant M Henninger