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Copyright And Good Faith Purchasers, Shyamkrishna Balganesh
Copyright And Good Faith Purchasers, Shyamkrishna Balganesh
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Good faith purchasers for value — individuals who unknowingly and in good faith purchase property from a seller whose own actions in obtaining the property are of questionable legality — have long obtained special protection under the common law. Despite the seller’s own actions being tainted, such purchasers obtain valid title themselves and are allowed to freely alienate the property without any restriction. Modern copyright law, however, does just the opposite. Individuals who unknowingly and in good faith purchase property embodying an unauthorized copy of a protected work are altogether precluded from subsequently alienating such property, or risk running afoul …
Copyright, Custom, And Lessons From The Common Law, Jennifer E. Rothman
Copyright, Custom, And Lessons From The Common Law, Jennifer E. Rothman
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In this essay prepared for the University of Pennsylvania’s conference on Intellectual Property and the Common Law, I build upon my work on custom and intellectual property. I focus here on one important facet of the subject — how longstanding common law principles should inform our understanding of custom. The common law provides a number of lessons on how to appropriately limit the consideration of custom in intellectual property law and elsewhere. The essay begins by considering the traditional role of custom in the common law. Part II then examines several of the ways that courts have incorporated custom into …
Debunking Blackstonian Copyright, Shyamkrishna Balganesh
Debunking Blackstonian Copyright, Shyamkrishna Balganesh
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This is a review of Neil Weinstock Netanel’s Copyright’s Paradox (2008).
Foreseeability And Copyright Incentives, Shyamkrishna Balganesh
Foreseeability And Copyright Incentives, Shyamkrishna Balganesh
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Copyright law’s principal justification today is the economic theory of creator incentives. Central to this theory is the recognition that while copyright’s exclusive rights framework provides creators with an economic incentive to create, it also entails large social costs, and that creators therefore need to be given just enough incentive to create in order to balance the system’s benefits against its costs. Yet, none of copyright’s current doctrines enable courts to circumscribe a creator’s entitlement by reference to limitations inherent in the very idea of incentives. While the common law too relies on providing actors with incentives to behave in …