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Posted by Walter Traprock on 07/12/06 08:11
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20060712a8.html
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Company can keep selling cheap classic films: court The Tokyo
District Court on Tuesday rejected a request by a U.S. movie company
to suspend sales of low-priced DVDs of old movie classics like
"Roman Holiday," which was released in 1953, on grounds that they
violate copyrights.
In turning down the injunction request, presiding Judge Makiko
Takabe said copyrights to movies released in 1953 expired at the
end of 2003.
The court ruling comes in response to Paramount Pictures Corp.'s
petition for an injunction against First Trading Co., a Japanese
company that manufactures DVDs of classic films and sells them at
deep discounts.
The decision, which allows discount sales of films distributed
before 1954, is likely to have a major impact on the movie industry,
observers said.
Amendments to the copyright law that took effect Jan. 1, 2004,
extended the period of protection for movie copyrights to 70 years
from the previous 50 years.
Because the rights to films released in 1953 and before can be
considered to have expired at the end of 2003 -- under the older
law -- a legal debate has arisen over whether the extended copyrights
should apply to such films.
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