Law Commons^™

Derivative Works 2.0: Reconsidering Transformative Use In The Age Of Crowdsourced Creation, Jacqueline D. Lipton, John Tehranian

Articles

Apple invites us to “Rip. Mix. Burn.” while Sony exhorts us to “make.believe.” Digital service providers enable us to create new forms of derivative work — work based substantially on one or more preexisting works. But can we, in a carefree and creative spirit, remix music, movies, and television shows without fear of copyright infringement liability? Despite the exponential growth of remixing technologies, content holders continue to benefit from the vagaries of copyright law. There are no clear principles to determine whether any given remix will infringe one or more copyrights. Thus, rights holders can easily and plausibly threaten infringement …

Holden Caulfield Grows Up: Salinger V. Colting, The Promotion-Of-Progress Requirement, And Market Failure In A Derivative-Works Regime, John M. Newman

Articles

In 2009, the pseudonymous 'John David California" announced plans for U.S. publication of 6o Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, a "sequel" to JD. Salinger's canonical novel The Catcher in the Rye. Salinger reacted swiftly, bringing a copyright infingement suit to enjoin publication of the new work. The district court granted the injunction, effectively banning U.S. distribution of the sequel and unintentionally illustrating modern copyright law's troubling divergence from the purpose of the constitutional grant of copyright authority to Congress.

Economic analysis demonstrates the tension caused by the repeated, incremental expansion of copyright protections-at some point, the Copyright Act will …

What's My Copy Right?, Michael J. Madison

Articles

This piece consists of an early 21st century whimsy, a dialogue that borrows and blends history and humor to illustrate some puzzles of copyright law in the context of digital technology (with references to Folsom v. Marsh and Abbott & Costello).