Pleasant Supreme Court decision

In a pleasant indication that the U.S. Supreme Court has not
completely lost its collective mind, it decided 8--0 that the Lanham
Act (part of trademark law) does not lessen the public's right to
public-domain works. (Decision at
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/02pdf/02-428.pdf.)
 
The case is a bit tortuous, but briefly, a book was published, and
a TV program was made from it, the publisher having sold the TV
rights. Years later, the publisher renewed the book's copyright, but
the video was allowed to pass into the public domain. A decade after
that, the publisher re-sold the book's TV rights to a video
distributor. When another company repackaged and sold the original
(public-domain) video the distributor sued under the Lanham Act,
claiming that the repackager was ``reverse passing off'' (selling
someone else's goods under your own label).
 
The court observed that since the repackager had taken a PD work
and resold it, the distributor was SOL. The distributor has rights in
its own, newly-slapped-together, version, but cannot use the Lanham
Act to reach back and gain rights in the public domain, which ``would
cause it to conflict with copyright law, which is precisely directed
to that subject[...].''
 
We've gotta take our victories where we can.
--
 
                         Best wishes,
 
                                  Max Hyre