Extraterrestrial Copyright: It’S Complicated WENDI A

Extraterrestrial Copyright: It’s Complicated WENDI A. MALONEY

When Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded a remake of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” aboard the International Space Station in 2013 and posted the music video on YouTube, bloggers and journalists raised the seemingly novel question, How does copyright work in space? As it turns out, Hadfield had obtained permission from Bowie to record and distribute the 1969 song, and production and distribution were entirely terrestrial.

Still, the question of copyright protection forward-looking manner, the Examining Mars and Venus present much for works created beyond Earth was not Division has considered the implications more difficult questions, for on these new to the Copyright Office. Donald Reines, of these acts insofar as they relate to the planets we may encounter strange forms a prescient staffer from the old Reference Copyright Office and the Copyright Law. of intelligent life, speaking and writing Division, explored it in a 1952 satire, “The The very first question to be considered in many different languages. If they are dispatched Shape of Copyright to Come.” His essay is the applicability of the Copyright Law to friendly and produce objects similar to the immediately was first published in the Library of the Moon. Most astronomers believe the present classes of registrable articles, will CANADIAN SPACE AGENCY/AGENCE SPATIALE CANADIENNE to the Copyright Congress Information Bulletin and reprinted moon is uninhabited, so it will be claimed we establish copyright relations with them Office would reach here in elsewhere under the title “Interplanetary in much the way Antarctica is now, by the and register these items? … its 36th year, too late to register.… Copyright.” Here are some excerpts. various nations sending expeditions there. [I]t is possible some Martians or [W]e can pass on to the reorganization It will most likely be used only as a way Venusians may have more than one head. of the Office necessitated by the Recently the Examining Division has station for trips further out in space, but In this case, would we register the work of tremendous amount of new material observed the large number of publications assuming some poet stationed there prints one of these creatures as that of a single these planets and stars will furnish. of all sorts dealing, either factually or and distributes a book throughout the author, or would the name of each head be Since the present system of examining fictionally, with the conquest of space, American colony, the question arises as to set down as co-author? It is important that is considered inadequate for such a and has come to believe that the concept whether it can be registered, and in what this matter be straightened out, for more workload, it has been suggested that we which H. G. Wells called “the leap in class. The majority feels that it should be reasons than one. install a giant thinking machine . . . into the air” is entering the consciousness of accepted under the conditions which apply Further out in space we encounter whose circuits we build the Copyright modern man. This new facet of the mind, to the Territories and Possessions of the problems of a different nature. It is Law and all decisions made in the courts plus the rapid rate of growth of modern United States, but the minority holds that apparent that the 28 year term of copyright and in the Office. . . . Applications will be technology, have led the Examining only Ad Interim registration is possible, will cause great hardship to those authors submitted on punched cards which will be Division to the inescapable conclusion that since the Moon is most certainly outside domiciled at the other end of the Galaxy, fed into the machine and either accepted human beings, most probably Americans, the United States. Several have expressed for in many cases it takes more than 28 or rejected immediately. Doubtful cases will land on the Moon before 1960, and on merely their hope of retiring before the years to reach Earth from those areas. which now require five or six weeks of Mars and Venus before 1975. In its usual first landing is made. A book published on Aldebaran and CONTINUED >

< deliberation can be cleared in one-millionth of a second, and with the knowledge that the Services Division, the thus eliminating our backlog and our Friday afternoon Examining Division, the Cataloging Division, and the reports concerning them. This alone will save 27,375,549 Reference Division are all solidly behind him. And we do man-hours per year. . . . mean behind. One suggestion for handling the mass of statistics produced by these operations is that we hire “calculating Regarding Chris Hadfield’s music video of “Space Oddity,” wizards,” those strange persons who can perform it was taken down from YouTube a year after its initial tremendous mathematical calculations in their heads. It is posting in 2013 based on a one-year licensing agreement felt that the fact these wizards are usually idiots outside with David Bowie and his publisher, the copyright owner their ability to calculate should not be grounds for barring of the song. Subsequently, Bowie—who called Hadfield’s them from employment, since the Examining Division has cover “possibly the most poignant version of the song never discriminated this way in the past. ever created”—helped to renegotiate an agreement with We feel that, in keeping with the glorious traditions of his publisher that allows the video to remain on YouTube the Copyright Office, we make every effort to solve most of until November 2016. To view it, go to http://tinyurl.com/ these problems now, so that the pilot of the first rocket to jse9jt7. 2 the moon can make his flight with a mind free of anxiety,

CANADIAN SPACE AGENCY/AGENCE SPATIALE CANADIENNE