FC: Stu Baker on Supreme Court's important new trademark decision

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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From: "Baker, Stewart" <SBaker () steptoe com>
To: "'declan () well com'" <declan () well com>
cc: "Albertazzie, Sally" <SAlbertazzie () steptoe com>
Subject: RE: Paul Levy on Supreme Court's important new trademark
 decision
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2003 06:25:30 -0400

X-UIDL: 1b13c491e38e59018536d25ddd4ec615


Declan,

I was counsel of record for Dastar.  Paul's analysis is correct.  I suspect 
the Court took the case in part to demonstrate that, the result in Eldred 
notwithstanding, the public domain is important and will be protected.  In 
the near term, the case's significance is that it overturns twenty years of 
lower court decisions allowing writers and composers to sue for "creative 
credit" on films, tv shows, and recordings.  In the longer run, there might 
be implications for aggressive legal efforts to control use of the public 
domain or even fair use.  There's probably an argument based on Dastar that 
the DMCA can't be used to enforce a technological lock-up of public domain 
works, for example.

Stewart




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