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A comment on Happy Public Domain Day: Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” Is Copyright Free. Parent comment

Re:Happy Public Domain Day: Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” Is... by wtallis on Wednesday January 01, 2020 @08:31PM (#21932209)
> They declared that since New York State had not passed explicit statutes dealing with recording copyright, it was in fact governed by “common law”

How did the court justify that conclusion over the more obvious conclusion that copyright—including of recordings—is governed by federal law with a constitutional requirement for time limits?

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Re:Happy Public Domain Day: Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” Is... by vilhelm_s on Wednesday January 01, 2020 @09:09PM (#21932398)
The linked document explains this, but it's because there is no federal copyright law for pre-1972 sound recordings. Before 1972 there was no federal copyright law for sound recordings, and then congress did not want to change the state-law copyright status of recordings made before the federal law was passed, so it was intentionally left non-preempted so that state law applies.
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