Dmitri Shostakovich

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp.">Shostakovich v. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp. is a landmark 1948 New York Supreme Court decision. It was the first case in the United States dealing with moral rights in authorship. The Soviet composers Dmitri Shostakovich (pictured), Aram Khachaturian, Sergei Prokofiev, and Nikolai Myaskovsky sued Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation for using their compositions in the film The Iron Curtain. Although their compositions were in the public domain in the United States, the composers argued that the film violated their moral rights by using their works in a manner contrary to their beliefs. The court rejected the composers' argument, holding that there was no clear standard for adjudicating moral rights and that moral rights conflict with free use of public domain works. The decision has been criticized for misunderstanding moral rights and praised for upholding the right of the public to use public domain works over the rights of authors to censor uses that they disagree with. (Full article...)

Frédéric Chopin

• ... that Chopin's heart (composer pictured) was smuggled into Poland by his sister?
• ... that Shen Zigao, the first Anglican bishop of Chinese descent, was consecrated at All Saints Church, Shanghai, in 1934?
• ... that before filming National Football League games, former Green Bay Packers video director Al Treml was trained in photography while serving in the United States Army?
• ... that the Russian propaganda outlet Sputnik compared the Global Engagement Center to the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four?
• ... that Giovanni Bonfanti scored a goal on his debut in a European competition?
• ... that The New Zealand Herald opposed a children's hospital in favour of a statue of Queen Victoria?
• ... that the Hank Aaron State Trail was regularly visited by Hank Aaron until his death in 2021?
• ... that it is controversial whether there are things that do not exist?

Luke Humphries

• In darts, Luke Humphries (pictured) wins the PDC World Championship.
• In Kerman, Iran, at least 91 people are killed by Islamic State bombings during a ceremony commemorating the assassination of Qasem Soleimani.
• Japan Airlines Flight 516 collides with a Japan Coast Guard airplane at Tokyo's Haneda Airport, killing five aboard the latter aircraft.
• Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the South Korean opposition, is hospitalized following a stabbing attack in Busan.

January 8: Eugenio María de Hostos's birthday in Puerto Rico (2024)

Blackstone Library

• 1697 – Scottish student Thomas Aikenhead became the last person in Great Britain to be executed for blasphemy.
• 1904 – Blackstone Library (pictured), the first branch of the Chicago Public Library system, was dedicated.
• 1977 – Three bombs attributed to Armenian nationalists exploded across Moscow, killing seven people and injuring 37 people.
• 1981 – In Trans-en-Provence, France, a local farmer reported a UFO sighting claimed to be "perhaps the most completely and carefully documented sighting of all time".
• 2011 – Jared Lee Loughner opened fire at a public meeting held by U.S. representative Gabby Giffords in Tucson, Arizona, killing six people and injuring twelve others.