Copyright infringement in the public domain

by Sebastian Benthall

Mike Masnick at Techdirt on the topic of copyright infringement on the public domain:

…a bunch of episodes from “The Andy Griffith” show fell into the public domain. However, it was just a bunch of episodes from later seasons. Earlier seasons remained under copyright. The court ruled that since the later shows were based on the earlier shows that were still covered by copyright, the later shows could not be distributed freely. This seems like a rather perverse interpretation of copyright law.

Full post here.