Intelligence Committee Senators Call On Obama To Declassify Evidence Of Russian Election Interference

DYI:  Whether true or not the U.S. all through its history interfered in the elections of other countries and yet if another country interferes with ours we have a hissy fit!

CBS Sues Public Domain For Existing

Okay fine, CBS hasn't sued "the public domain" — but at this point I suspect that's only because they haven't figured out how to do so. In the mean time, they're suing a YouTube channel for copyright infringement after it posted sixteen public domain episodes of the Andy Griffith show. How, you ask? Isn't the public domain the, uh, public domain? Apparently not if you get creative with your lawsuit:

The episodes at issue in the suit fell into the public domain in the '90s because the copyright-renewal application was rejected for being filed too late and, according to the suit, that's one of the reasons Heldman thinks his posting them was legitimate. 

... CBS attorney Jonathan Zavin argues that, because CBS holds valid and existing copyrights for the first 79 episodes of the series, the "copyrighted characters and numerous other original creative elements" that appeared in those episodes would still be protected in the middle episodes. 

"Accordingly, the newly-added elements, and only the newly-added elements, of these Middle Episodes which did not previously appear in the first 79 episodes of The Andy Griffith Show (which remain protected by statutory copyright) have fallen into the public domain in the United States," he writes.

With any luck, the judge will reject this nonsense. So far, despite being pretty cooperative with the demands of rightsholders, courts have stopped short of saying "you cannot publish that public domain material at all", because even the most copyright-friendly judge seems to recognize that's a bridge too far. But even if CBS doesn't get all their wishes, I won't be surprised if the eventual ruling continues to chip away at the public domain, delineating new restrictions that have no reason to exist or planting landmines of legal language that will be unwittingly detonated by some future public domain miner.

But hey that's all secondary — the important thing is making sure nobody gets to watch sixteen episodes of a half-century-old TV show for free, right?

DYI: