Law Commons^™

Copyrightability Of Music Compilations And Playlists: Original And Creative Works Of Authorship?, Marc Fritzsche

Marc Fritzsche

With the digitalization of music and the increasing popularity of online streaming services, people can conveniently create their own playlists and music compilations at will and share them worldwide. Imagine a world in which any selection and arrangement of songs, whether made by you, a DJ, a radio station, or a record label, is protected under the regime of Copyright Law. The result would be a vast amount of copyright infringements when a playlist or compilation gets mimicked by others. Thus far, only the High Court in London, UK, was confronted with this problem, but the parties settled, leaving the …

Must The States Discriminate Against Their Own Producers Under The Dormant Commerce Clause?, David M. Driesen

David M Driesen

This article works out the implications of an insight mentioned, but not developed thoroughly, in the literature on free trade law: A polity that regulates its own producers without regulating outside producers serving that polity discriminates against its own producers. This gives rise to a question, should laws serving free trade values require polities to discriminate against their own producers? The dormant Commerce Clause’s extraterritoriality doctrine—which prohibits regulating wholly outside the enacting state’s borders—seems to require discrimination against the enacting state’s producers. Federal courts have recently used this doctrine to strike down state laws addressing climate disruption and regulating the …

Can A One Star Review Get You Sued? The Right To Anonymous Speech On The Internet And The Future Of Internet “Unmasking” Statutes, Jesse D. Lively

Jesse D Lively

This Comment argues that the Supreme Court of Virginia should first reverse the Virginia Court of Appeal’s decision when it hears the Yelp case later this year. Secondly, the court hold that the Virginia statute for identifying persons communicating anonymously over the Internet violates the First Amendment's required showing of merit on both law and facts before a subpoena duces tecum to identify an anonymous speaker can be enforced. Lastly, it should adopt a new “unveiling standard” similar to the standards used in either Dendrite or Cahill. Part II examines the jurisprudential history of identifying anonymous Internet speakers in defamation …

Copyright Tussle And Search Engines, Anoop Kumar Yadav

anoop kumar yadav

The Intellectual Property Laws (I.P. Laws) have, to a great extent, proved to be successful in nipping the copyright infringement in its bud. The I.P. Laws provide umbrella jurisprudence, which seek to protect the creativity of the authors. But despite that, it has been widely observed that the I.P. Laws have failed to cover other aspects of the intellectual property. For example, the liability of the search engines for the copyright infringement has remained out of the ambit of the I.P. Laws. The paper is focused on drawback of the Information Technology laws in various nations. Further, it also suggests …

Managing Content In Virtual Environments: From Music To Machinima, Tamiko R. Franklin

Tamiko R Franklin

Developing an effective rights management strategy in virtual environments requires a close review of current case law especially with respect to ongoing clarifications of mentioned statutory provisions under copyright laws. It is also helpful to be aware of the peculiarities that involve copyright protected content created for use in virtual spaces such as issues involving publication and making available across multiple jurisdictions. There are differences in international systems of protection that affect the intellectual property rights in content; particularly so if the content in question is a work of visual art like a photograph or digital representation of a painting, …

“Technopanics, Threat Inflation, And The Danger Of An Information Technology Precautionary Principle”, Adam Thierer

Adam Thierer

Fear is an extremely powerful motivational force. In public policy debates, appeals to fear are often used in an attempt to sway opinion or bolster the case for action. Such appeals are used to convince citizens that threats to individual or social wellbeing may be avoided only if specific steps are taken. Often these steps take the form of anticipatory regulation based on the precautionary principle.

Such “fear appeal arguments” are frequently on display in the Internet policy arena and often take the form of a full-blown “moral panic” or “technopanic.” These panics are intense public, political, and academic responses …

Seeking Digital Redemption: The Future Of Forgiveness In The Internet Age, Meg Leta Ambrose

Meg Leta Ambrose

The Right to be Forgotten, a controversial privacy right that allows users to make information about themselves less accessible after a period of time, is hailed as a pillar of information privacy in some countries while condemned as censorship in others. Psychological and behavioral research indicates that one’s capacity to forget features of the past - or remember them in a different way - is deeply connected to his or her power to forgive others and move on, which in turn, has dramatic impacts on well-being. Second chances and the reinvention of self are deeply intertwined with American history and …

Patent Litigation And The Internet, John R. Allison, Emerson H. Tiller, Samantha Zyontz

John R. Allison

Using both univariate comparisons and multiple regression techniques, we find that: (1) Internet patents and their two subtypes, broad Internet business models and narrower Internet business techniques, were litigated at a far higher rate than other (non-Internet patents, or NIPs)—they were between 7.5 and 9.5 times more likely to end up in infringement litigation, depending on the model we used. (2) Within the category of Internet patents, those on business models were litigated at a significantly higher rate than those on business techniques. (3) Across both Internet patents and NIPs, patents issued to small entities, especially individuals and small businesses, …

2 Standards 1 Cup: How Geotargeting Will End The Battle Between National And Local Obscenity Standards, Joseph Mason Kjar

J. Mason Kjar

The First Amendment guarantees the right to free speech—but that protection is not absolute. Some speech is banned outright, such as child pornography. Other speech is nearly fully protected, such as erotic speech. Caught in the middle of the two is obscene speech, which can be owned in the privacy of one’s home, but cannot be disseminated publicly.

The line between obscenity and eroticism is hard to pinpoint, and varies from community to community. In general, the process of analyzing whether a work is obscene includes asking whether the content violates the community standards of the local geographic area where …

Website Proprietorship Liability, Design And Two Regrettable Online Norms:, Nancy Kim

Nancy Kim

Two regrettable norms have emerged online: the posting of content about others without their consent; and impulsive postings with little or no regard to their long term consequences. Website operators can either encourage or discourage these regrettable norms and influence their consequences through the design of their website and by the fostering of norms and codes of conduct. Unfortunately, section 230 of the Communications Decency Act as interpreted by courts provides websites with broad immunity. In a prior Article, I argued that a proprietorship standard should be imposed upon websites which would require them to take reasonable measures to prevent …

Who Owns "Hillary.Com"? Political Speech And The First Amendment In Cyberspace, Jacqueline Lipton

Jacqueline D Lipton

In the lead-up to the next presidential election, it will be important for candidates both to maintain an online presence and to exercise control over bad faith uses of domain names and web content related to their campaigns. What are the legal implications for the domain name system? Although, for example, Senator Hillary Clinton now owns ‘hillaryclinton.com’, the more generic ‘hillary.com’ is registered to a software firm, Hillary Software, Inc. What about ‘hillary2008.com’? It is registered to someone outside the Clinton campaign and is not currently in active use. This article examines the large gaps and inconsistencies in current domain …

Who Owns "Hillary.Com"? Political Speech And The First Amendment In Cyberspace, Jacqueline Lipton

Jacqueline D Lipton

In the lead-up to the next presidential election, it will be important for candidates both to maintain an online presence and to exercise control over bad faith uses of domain names and web content related to their campaigns. What are the legal implications for the domain name system? Although, for example, Senator Hillary Clinton now owns ‘hillaryclinton.com’, the more generic ‘hillary.com’ is registered to a software firm, Hillary Software, Inc. What about ‘hillary2008.com’? It is registered to someone outside the Clinton campaign and is not currently in active use. This article examines the large gaps and inconsistencies in current domain …

To Mark Or Not To Mark: Application Of The Patent Marking Statute To Websites And The Internet , Eugene Goryunov, Mark V. Polyakov

Mark V Polyakov

The Marking Statute expressly limits the patent owner’s recovery of damages if the patent owner itself, anyone making, offering for sale, or selling failed to mark its patented invention, sold within the United States, with the associated patent number. In these cases, damages must be limited to those that accrue after the infringer is provided actual notice of infringement. The authors suggest that, in light of relevant jurisprudence and the purpose of the Marking Statute, owners of patents that are directed to any business activities on the Internet should mark their own websites, and require their licensees to mark their …