Law Commons^™

Indistinguishable From Magic: A Wizard's Guide To Copyright And 3d Printing, James Grimmelmann

James Grimmelmann

3D printing is a technology of such surprise and wonder that it verges on the magical. But what if 3D printers actually were magic? How would copyright law treat the wizards who used them? This Comment uses the magical analogy to make familiar doctrines strange, and a strange technology familiar. This Comment was prepared as an invited comment on Kyle Dolinsky's "CAD’s Cradle: Untangling Copyrightability, Derivative Works, and Fair Use in 3D Printing" for the 2013 Washington and Lee Student Notes Colloquium.

Three Theories Of Copyright In Ratings, James Grimmelmann

James Grimmelmann

Are ratings copyrightable? The answer depends on what ratings are. As a history of copyright in ratings shows, some courts treat them as unoriginal facts, some treat them as creative opinions, and some treat them as troubling self-fulfilling prophecies. The push and pull among these three theories explains why ratings are such a difficult boundary case for copyright, both doctrinally and theoretically. The fact-opinion tension creates a perverse incentive for raters: the less useful a rating, the more copyrightable it looks. Self-fulfilling ratings are the most troubling of all: copyright’s usual balance between incentives and access becomes indeterminate when ratings …

The Google Book Search Settlement: Ends, Means, And The Future Of Books, James Grimmelmann

James Grimmelmann

For the past four years, Google has been systematically making digital copies of books in the collections of many major university libraries. It made the digital copies searchable through its web site--you couldn't read the books, but you could at least find out where the phrase you're looking for appears within them. This outraged copyright owners, who filed a class action lawsuit to make Google stop. Then, last fall, the parties to this large class action announced an even larger settlement: one that would give Google a license not only to scan books, but also to sell them.

The settlement …