Digital Commons Network^™

Author Autonomy And Atomism In Copyright Law, Molly Shaffer Van Houweling

Molly Van Houweling

No abstract provided.

Touching And Concerning Copyright: Real Property Reasoning In Mdy Industries, Inc. V. Blizzard Entertainment, Inc, Molly Shaffer Van Houweling

Molly Van Houweling

No abstract provided.

Scholars’ Supreme Court Amicus Brief In Support Of Neither Party: Petrella V. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Douglas Laycock, Mark P. Gergen, Doug Rendleman

Mark P. Gergen

The appeal to the Supreme Court in Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer deals with the equitable defense of plaintiff’s laches before suing for copyright infringement. Laches is unreasonable and prejudicial delay. MGM allegedly violated plaintiff’s copyright repeatedly over a period of many years; the statute of limitations has not run on the most recent violations. Plaintiff argues that laches should never apply to a cause of action with a statute of limitations. Defendant argues that laches should bar all relief if defendant relied on plaintiff’s failure to sue earlier, without having to match defendant’s reliance to the remedies plaintiff seeks. This scholars’ …

Copyright As Contract, Jeffrey L. Harrison

Jeffrey L Harrison

Copyright is essentially a contract between the author and the public with the government acting as the agent of the public. The consideration received by authors is defined by duration and breadth of exclusivity. The consideration for the public is the creation of a "work" that will be available on a limited basis for the life of the author plus 70 years and then available without limit after that. If there were no transaction costs at all, it would be possible to "pay" authors different amounts of exclusivity. Perhaps a greeting card would get one holiday season of exclusivity, if …

Section By Section Commentary On The Tpp Final Ip Chapter Published 5 November 2015 – Part 2 – Copyright, Kimberlee G. Weatherall

Kimberlee G Weatherall

This note comments on the TPP copyright provisions (final text). It also compares each provision to multilateral and bilateral treaties. The material here is necessarily preliminary and does not purport to be complete. It is published on the basis that it may assist others’ analysis and commentary

Copyright Inside The Law Library, David Vaver

David Vaver

No abstract provided.

Understanding Copyright & Transformative Fair Use, Andrée Rathemacher, Angel Ferria, Julia Lovett

Julia Lovett

Slides and workshop examples from a session, "Understanding Copyright & Transformative Fair Use," given at the Rhode Island Library Association Annual Conference, "RILA 2015," on May 28, 2015 in Newport, Rhode Island.

"This interactive workshop will outline the basics of copyright and fair use, emphasizing the notion of transformative fair use as highlighted in recent court decisions. The majority of the session will be devoted to real-life scenarios, and audience members will be able to analyze texts, images, video, and sound recordings to determine whether the proposed use is fair. You’ll also learn about handy alternatives for situations when fair …

New England Technical Services Librarians Spring 2012 Conference: Ilibrary: Digital Futures For Libraries (May 3, 2012, Worcester, Ma), Andrée J. Rathemacher, Michael A. Cerbo Ii, Julia A. Lovett

Julia Lovett

This report discusses the program of the 2012 New England Technical Services Librarians (NETSL) annual spring conference, held on Thursday, May 3 at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, titled “iLibrary: Digital Futures for Libraries.” NETSL is a section of the New England Library Association and a regional group of the American Library Association.

Canada's Robertson Ruling: Any Practical Significance For Copyright Treatment Of Freelance Authors?, Giuseppina D'Agostino

Giuseppina D'Agostino

Canada's Supreme Court ruled that publishers need permission from freelance authors before reproducing their works in online databases. But in contrast to the approach taken in Europe and the US, publishers are now entitled to republish articles on CD-ROM without asking or compensating the freelance authors. Ultimately, irrespective of the publishing medium, the Court defers to private ordering to clarify ambiguities in new use clauses that will continue to persist as technologies evolve to the detriment of freelancers. Thus this decision will have little, if any, impact in practice.

Healing Fair Dealing?: A Comparative Copyright Analysis Of Canadian Fair Dealing To Uk Fair Dealing And Us Fair Use, Giuseppina D'Agostino

Giuseppina D'Agostino

As a result of the March 4, 2004 Supreme Court of Canada decision in CCH Canadian Ltd v Law Society of Upper Canada for the first time in Canadian copyright history, the court determined that Canadian law must recognize a user right to carry on exceptions generally and fair dealing in particular. This paper compares the Canadian fair dealing legislation and jurisprudence to that of the UK and the US. It is observed that because of CCH, the Canadian common law fair dealing factors are more flexible than those entrenched in the US. For the UK, certain criteria have emerged …

Creative Commons, Molly Higgins

Molly Higgins

No abstract provided.

Some Key Things Entrepreneurs Need To Know About The Law And Lawyers, Lawrence J. Trautman, Anthony Luppino, Malika S. Simmons

Lawrence J. Trautman Sr.

New business formation is a powerful economic engine that creates jobs. Diverse legal issues are encountered as a start-up entity approaches formation, initial capitalization and fundraising, arrangements with employees and independent contractors, and relationships with other third parties. The endeavors of a typical start-up in the United States will likely implicate many of the following areas of law: intellectual property; business organizations; tax laws; employment and labor laws; securities regulation; contracts and licensing agreements; commercial sales; debtor-creditor relations; real estate law; health and safety laws/codes; permits and licenses; environmental protection; industry specific regulatory laws and approval processes; tort/personal injury, products …

Users' Patronage: The Return Of The Gift In The "Crowd Society", Giancarlo F. Frosio

Giancarlo Francesco Frosio

In this work, I discuss the tension between gift and market economy throughout the history of creativity. For millennia, the production of creative artifacts has lain at the intersection between gift and market economy. From the time of Pindar and Simonides – and until the Romanticism will commence a process leading to the complete commodification of creative artifacts – market exchange models run parallel to gift exchange. From Roman amicitia to the medieval and Renaissance belief that “scientia donum dei est, unde vendi non potest,” creativity has been repeatedly construed as a gift. Again, at the time of the British …

Infringement As Unfair Competition: A Blueprint For Global Governance?, Sean Pager, Eric Priest

Sean Pager

INFRINGEMENT AS UNFAIR COMPETITION: A BLUEPRINT FOR GLOBAL GOVERNANCE?

Sean A. Pager Michigan State University College of Law

Eric Priest University of Oregon School of Law

ABSTRACT

This Article examines a new approach to address persistent regulatory failures in global supply chains. In a series of recent cases, unfair competition actions have been brought in U.S. court against foreign manufacturers who infringe software overseas under the theory that the cost savings from infringement confers an unfair advantage in U.S. markets. While this theory has been advanced in the intellectual property context, the same approach could work to target abuses in …

If That’S The Way It Must Be, Okay: Campbell V. Acuff-Rose On Rewind, Thomas C. Irvin

Thomas C. Irvin

The 1994 Supreme Court case Campbell v. Acuff-Rose established broad protections for parody in U.S. copyright law. The decision has justifiably been hailed as a victory for free speech and artistic creativity. But while the case is well known, the facts behind the case are not. Those facts show that the case should have been decided differently by every court that heard it. In short, the case came out wrong—wonderfully wrong. This article is the first in-depth review of Campbell v. Acuff-Rose since the decision was handed down nearly 20 years ago, and is the first to examine the musical …

Copyright In Pantomime

Brian L. Frye

Why does the Copyright Act specifically provide for the protection of “pantomimes”? This article shows that the Copyright Act of 1976 amended the subject matter of copyright to include pantomimes simply in order to conform it to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. It further shows that the Berlin Act of 1909 amended the Berne Convention to provide for copyright protection of “les pantomimes” and “entertainments in dumb show” in order to ensure copyright protection of silent motion pictures. Unfortunately, the original purpose of providing copyright protection to “pantomimes” was forgotten. This Article argues that …

Literature’S Idea-Expression Distinction: Drawing A Line With Distinctive Elements Of Alternate Worlds, Joshua Jeng

Joshua Jeng

The line between ideas and expressions in copyright law has never been particularly clear. We want to protect what authors create so that they are motivated to create more, but we want broad concepts to remain free so that others may produce even more works. The distinction concept and an author's take on a concept has always been very difficult to define, even among legal scholars, and has largely remained misunderstood by the average author. However, as derivative works increase in prevalence and economic importance, the need for workable framework for understanding copyright that the lay author can understand is …

The Challenges Of Reforming Intellectual Property Protection For Computer Software, Peter S. Menell

Peter Menell

No abstract provided.

Applying Fundamental Copyright Principles To Lotus Development Corp. V. Borland International, Inc, Dennis S. Karjala, Peter S. Menell

Peter Menell

No abstract provided.

Judicial Resistance To Copyright Law's Inalienable Right To Terminate Transfers, Peter S. Menell, David Nimmer

Peter Menell

No abstract provided.

Pooh-Poohing Copyright Law's Inalienable Termination Rights, Peter S. Menell, David Nimmer

Peter Menell

From its earliest manifestations, copyright law has struggled to deal with the equitable and efficient division of value and control between creators and the enterprises that distribute their works. And for almost as long as copyright has existed, there has been concern about creators getting the short end of the stick in their dealings with distributors. Since 1909, Congress has sought to protect authors and their families by allowing them to grant their copyrights for exploitation and then, decades later, to recapture those same rights. After judicial interpretation of the 1909 Act frustrated this intent by upholding advance assignments of …

Governance Of Intellectual Resources And Disintegration Of Intellectual Property In The Digital Age, Peter S. Menell

Peter Menell

The Supreme Court's decision in eBay v. MercExchange brought into focus whether intellectual property policy should follow reflexively in the wake of tangible property doctrines or instead look to the distinctive market failures and institutional features of intellectual resources. Professor Richard Epstein argues in a recent article that `virtually all of the current malaise in dealing with both tangible and intellectual property stems from the failure to keep to the coherent rules of acquisition, exclusion, alienation, regulation, and condemnation that are called for by the classical liberal system ... .' Professor Epstein purports to validate what he calls the `carryover …

National Treatment, National Interest And The Public Domain, Margaret Ann Wilkinson

Margaret Ann Wilkinson

The concept of the "public domain" is a powerful rhetorical element in he policy debates involving intellectual property. But is it a stable and useful concept for analyzing information issues? Can the notion of the public domain and the concept of the information commons be separated? Is the notion of the public domain merely another way of expressing the public interest? This paper canvassed the literature, seeking a theoretically consistent definition for public domain that was equally applicable across the copyright, trademark and patent spheres. The analysis demonstrated that there is no such construct. The paper also reviews the findings …

Campbell At 21/Sony At 31, Jessica Litman

Jessica Litman

When copyright lawyers gather to discuss fair use, the most common refrain is its alarming expansion. Their distress about fair use’s enlarged footprint seems completely untethered from any appreciation of the remarkable increase in exclusive copyright rights. In the nearly 40 years since Congress enacted the 1976 copyright act, the rights of copyright owners have expanded markedly. Copyright owners’ demands for further expansion continue unabated. Meanwhile, they raise strident objections to proposals to add new privileges and exceptions to the statute to shelter non-infringing uses that might be implicated by their expanded rights. Copyright owners have used the resulting uncertainty …

Copyright: Parliament, The Copyright Board And The Courts..., Margaret Ann Wilkinson

Margaret Ann Wilkinson

No abstract provided.

Locke Remixed ;-), Robert P. Merges

Robert P Merges

No abstract provided.

The Proper Scope Of The Copyright And Patent Power, Robert Patrick Merges, Glenn Harlan Reynolds

Robert P Merges

No abstract provided.

The End Of Friction - Property Rights And Contract In The Newton World Of On-Line Commerce, Robert P. Merges

Robert P Merges

No abstract provided.

A Fresh Look At Tests For Nonliteral Copyright Infringement, Pamela Samuelson

Pamela Samuelson

Determining whether a copyright has been infringed is often straightforward in cases involving verbatim copying or slavish imitation. But when there are no literal similarities between the works at issue, ruling on infringement claims becomes more difficult. The Second and Ninth Circuits have developed five similar yet distinct tests for judging nonliteral copyright infringement. This Essay argues that each of these tests is flawed and that courts have generally failed to provide clear guidance about which test to apply in which kinds of cases. This Essay offers seven specific strategies to improve the analysis of nonliteral infringements. Courts should do …

Copyright And Freedom Of Expression In Historical Perspective, Pamela Samuelson

Pamela Samuelson

No abstract provided.