Court Watch
tion. Further, the Respondents reasoned that the URAA amendments were necessary to bring the U.S. into compliance with international standards set by the GATT negotiations. As such Section 514 represented “the price of admission to the inter- national system,” which would spur greater pro- tection throughout the world and would alleviate risks to U.S. intellectual interests abroad. In addi- tion, the Respondents advanced that the lack of protection for concerned works did not reflect any Congressional determination that those authors did not deserve protection. Instead, the absence was a result of nonexistent foreign relations. Sec- tion 514 extended the remainder of the copyright term that the foreign authors would have received had they copyrighted their works in the United States at the time of publication.
The two sides similarly presented diverging view- points with respect to Section 514’s violation of the free speech rights provided by the First Amendment.
12
The Petitioners urged the Court to recognize the violation of free speech inherent in seizing works from the public domain and offering exclusive rights through copyright privileges. Section 514 restricts citizen’s right to speech by limiting access to what was once freely circulated.
Conversely, the Respondents contended that First Amendment analysis is inappropriate in this situa- tion because copyright law carves out exceptions for allowable use of protected material; these exceptions, the Respondents argued, limit free speech rights in a constitutionally acceptable man- ner. In addition, the Respondents again urged the Court to consider Section 514 not as a statute that grants protection to works previously circulated in the public domain, but as a statute which merely puts authors in the same position they would have had if the U.S. maintained copyright relations with their home nations at the time of creation.
While the Supreme Court debates the issues pre- sented in Golan, the fates of countless foreign
compositions and the reception of U.S. copyrights abroad remain in the balance.
* Submitted by Kristen Klump
ITLOS Considers Arguments in Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) Boundary Dispute Between Bangladesh and Myanmar
The International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS, or the Tribunal) is considering arguments in the case of Bangladesh v. Myanmar, a dispute over the boundary between the nations’ Exclu- sive Economic Zones (EEZs) in the Bay of Bengal. Bangladesh has complained to ITLOS, seeking a delineation which would not severely limit its EEZ due to overlapping boundaries with India and Myanmar. India has agreed to seek separate and equitably mediated boundaries, both at sea and on land, but Myanmar has refused to accommo- date Bangladesh’s protest of the general methods of delineating maritime boundaries.
The Bangladeshi complaint sets forth two issues: (1) the method by which EEZs are delineated be- tween nations, and (2) the maximum distance from shore that EEZs should extend. At stake are massive, untapped petroleum reserves below the continental shelf, the profits from which could eventually end rampant poverty in both countries.
EEZs govern far more than rights of fishing fleets and merchant navigation on the surface. They also determine which country has the right to grant li- censes for oil and mineral exploration below the sea floor. Fully 87 percent of known subsea pe- troleum reserves fall under national jurisdiction through EEZs, so their demarcation is as vital and contentious as the drawing of national borders on land. EEZs are most easily delineated by the “equi- distance principle”, which extends land boundar- ies into the sea along an equal distance from the shoreline. The boundary lies equidistant from ei- ther nation’s coast, and the resulting line generally splits an extension of the shoreline itself.
ILSA Quarterly » volume 20 » issue 2 » December 2011
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