Law Commons^™

Copyright's Empire: Why The Law Matters , Alina Ng

ExpressO

Two separate and distinct movements have colonized research in the field of intellectual property. Law and economics has deepened our understanding of the justification for granting monopoly rights over intellectual property. In recent years, economic theories have been used to support the growth of the commons – the free environment, where intellectual property plays little role in generating new creative works and innovation. The second movement is law and technology that has sought to increase understanding of intellectual property through the exploration of how technologies either provide freedoms or impose limitations to how creative works and innovation are created and …

Overcoming The Achilles Heel Of Copyright Law, Haochen Sun

ExpressO

With the recent proliferation of international, regional and bilateral treaties associated with copyright protection, the three-step test has been hailed as the panacea for measuring the legality of all limitations on copyright. This article challenges the legitimacy of the three-step test as a one-size-fits-all standard for copyright protection and puts forward a proposal to reshape this test. It further argues that the inquiry into the legitimacy of the three-step test necessitates a careful reexamination of the conventional wisdom of copyright law in general and the nature of copyright limitations in particular. Central to this scrutiny are the inquiries into how …

Access To Knowledge As A Bridge Over The Troubled Waters Of Copyright Fair Use -- From Jefferson To Mandela To Google, Douglas L. Rogers

ExpressO

The copyright fair use doctrine is a key to increasing access to knowledge and decreasing the digital divide between information-rich and information-poor countries. Publishers have sued Google for copyright infringement for scanning the copyrighted books of the publishers into a digital database, so Google users can search the database for certain words to determine what books contain words of interest to the user. The Google litigation, however, is only a small piece of the larger access to knowledge puzzle. The larger issue is access to the books themselves, translated into the native languages of citizens of developing countries. Yet copyright …

Technoconsen(T)Sus, Andrea M. Matwyshyn

ExpressO

Law is contributing to an information security paradox. Consumers are regularly “consenting” to the installation of computer code that makes them more vulnerable to harms such as identity theft. In particular, digital rights management technology accompanying digital music has recently left a wake of compromised user machines. Using the case study of security-invasive digital rights management technology, this article argues that a fundamental tension exists among intellectual property law, computer intrusion law and contract law regarding meaningful consumer consent in digital contexts. This article proposes to ease the noise in consent doctrine through creating an objective “reasonable digital consumer” standard …

The Twilight Of The Opera Pirates: A Prehistory Of The Exclusive Right Of Public Performance For Musical Compositions, Zvi S. Rosen

ExpressO

The exclusive right of public performance of a musical composition now brings to composers and songwriters revenue of approximately one billion dollars a year in the US alone. However, this right was not firmly established until a century after America’s first copyright statute, relying until then on the common-law principles that protected unpublished works. The first effort to create this right by statute was the Ingersoll Copyright Bill, an omnibus revision in 1844 which died quickly in committee. After that 50 years passed, and in the final quarter of the nineteenth century the need for statutory protection for public performance …

Defining Fair Use In The Digital Era, Joseph James Raffetto

ExpressO

The increasing prevalence of technology, and the ease with which the public and companies can reproduce, recombine, and reuse copyrighted works, has rendered the once-confusing fair use doctrine a virtual uncertainty. Given limited congressional guidance, courts have relied heavily on the secondary use’s potential effect on the market for the original work. While this reliance is based on the valid concern of maintaining adequate creative incentives, the enormous growth of licensing markets has resulted in an overemphasis on economic concerns. Recent court decisions indicate that fair use now turns not on the protection of creative incentives, but rather the preservation …

Copyright Distributive Injustice, Daniel Benoliel

ExpressO

By design, copyright is a legal field that is not distinctively designed for redistribution. And yet, numerous fairness scholars and other critics of the economics paradigm quite markedly argue that copyright law should be based upon some measure of distribution, not efficiency.

This essay argues that copyright law should not promote distributive justice concerns, subject to narrow exceptions and that other more efficient law such as taxation and welfare laws should do that instead. It does so in accordance to the prevailing welfare economics interpretative approach to copyright jurisprudence, with emphasis on the latest Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file sharing litigation.

It …

Risk Aversion And Rights Accretion In Intellectual Property Law, James Gibson

ExpressO

Intellectual property’s road to hell is paved with good intentions. Because liability is difficult to predict, intellectual property users often seek licenses even when proceeding without one might be permissible. Yet because the existence (vel non) of licensing markets plays a key role in determining the breadth of rights, these seemingly sensible licensing decisions eventually feed back into doctrine; the licensing itself becomes proof that the entitlement covers the use. Over time, then, public privilege recedes and rights expand, moving intellectual property’s ubiquitous gray areas into what used to be virgin territory--where risk aversion again creates licensing markets, which cause …

Taking Copyright Seriously: Abridging Rights Is More Serious Than Inflating Rights, Alina Ng

ExpressO

The proper balance between private rights and public interests in copyright has always been a heated debate. As communication and information technologies converge and develop to enable authors and users of creative works to create and use works without the physical limitations of the analog world, the debate has become more intense. This paper intends to contribute to the debate by bringing attention to basic ideas about rights and the importance of copyright as an institution to ensure that authors create new literary and artistic works for the benefit of the public. Rights under copyright are rights that define the …

Performing Rights Societies And The Digital Environment, Philippe Gilliéron

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Protecting Menard’S Quixote: A Return To The Strict Originality Standard In Copyright Law, Daniel R. Connolly

ExpressO

Copyright protection extends to “original” works. The adjective “original” here means a work that originated with its purported author, and is not meant to impute any novelty requirement to copyright law. However, case law and literature offer up several odd examples where two individuals have independently created identical works of art. The theory underlying copyright law requires that, because each work originated independently from separate authors, each work be independently copyrightable. Applying this strict, objective standard of originality to the transformative arts, we begin to see new possibilities for grounding copyrights in parodies and satires. Under current law, parodies escape …

The Problem Of Freedom Override By Digital Rights Management Technologies: The Market Mechanisms And Possible Legal Options, Yuko Noguchi

ExpressO

One of the major problems of copyright regulations in the digital and network era is that the Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies are overriding the freedom incorporated within the copyright regulations in the analog world. The override problem partly comes from the strict implementation of the DRM systems by the market, and partly from the anti-circumvention regulations that almost blindly protect such implementation. This research reviews the scope of anti-circumvention regulations by introducing Japanese regulations, which are rather modest, and by comparing with the U.S. regulations. It also extensively analyzes the market mechanisms that cause rather strict implementation of DRM …

Copyright On Catfish Row: Musical Borrowing, Porgy & Bess And Unfair Use, Olufunmilayo B. Arewa

ExpressO

Treatment of musical borrowing under current copyright standards is far too often inequitable. This is evident in the works of George Gershwin, who for a number of reasons was able to borrow freely from existing traditions, works and artists, copyright the works he produced that reflected such borrowings and then restrict future borrowings and reinterpretations of his works. Looking at the operation and uses of copyright in the specific instance of George Gershwin’s musical practice reflects uses of copyright in the musical arena and demonstrates some ways in which current copyright rules may not adequately contemplate actual practices of music …

Beyond Abstraction, The Law And Economics Of Copyright Scope And Doctrinal Efficiency, Matthew J. Sag

ExpressO

Uncertainty as to the optimum extent of protection has generally limited the capacity of law and economics to translate economic theory into coherent doctrinal recommendations in the realm of copyright. This article explores the relationship between copyright scope, doctrinal efficiency and welfare from a theoretical perspective to develop a framework for evaluating specific doctrinal recommendations in copyright law. The usefulness of applying this framework in either rejecting or improving doctrinal recommendations is illustrated with reference to the predominant law and economics theories of fair use.

Opting Out: Procedural Fair Use, Michael R. Mattioli

ExpressO

This article explores the advantages of opt-out plans, and identifies a critical shortcoming in Copyright’s doctrine of Fair Use. The discussion is fueled by a current controversy: In December of 2004, Google, Inc. announced its plan to digitally scan thousands of copyrighted books as part of a massive new digital indexing service. Hedging against possible litigation, Google provided a free and easy opt-out procedure for authors who didn’t want their books scanned. Despite this measure, two major authors’ groups have sued Google, claiming the opt-out plan imposes an unfair burden. This article explores the fairness of established opt-outs in contract …