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Full-Text Articles in Law
Fair Use In Sayre V. Moore: A Reply To Oracle, Ned Snow
Fair Use In Sayre V. Moore: A Reply To Oracle, Ned Snow
Faculty Publications
The Supreme Court is now considering the case of Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc. Oracle has argued that Google infringed its copyright in computer software, but a jury found that Google’s use was not infringing under the fair use doctrine. The Federal Circuit reversed the jury verdict under a de novo standard of review. I have argued that this reversal violates the Seventh Amendment.
Seventh Amendment rights depend on whether an issue would have been decided by a jury in English law courts during the late 1700s. My argument is that in the 1785 English case of Sayre v. …
Who Decides Fair Use -- Judge Or Jury?, Ned Snow
Who Decides Fair Use -- Judge Or Jury?, Ned Snow
Faculty Publications
For more than two-hundred years, the issue of fair use has been the province of the jury. That recently changed when the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals decided Oracle America, Inc. v. Google LLC. At issue was whether Google fairly used portions of Oracle’s computer software when Google created an operating system for smartphones. The jury found Google’s use to be fair, but the Federal Circuit reversed. Importantly, the Federal Circuit applied a de novo standard of review to reach its conclusion, departing from centuries of precedent.
Oracle raises a fundamental question in jurisprudence: Who should decide an issue …
Discrimination In The Copyright Clause, Ned Snow
Discrimination In The Copyright Clause, Ned Snow
Faculty Publications
ABSTRACT Does Congress have power to deny copyright protection for specific content? The Copyright Clause grants Congress power to “promote the Progress of Science” by legislating copyright laws. Certainly some content may reasonably be viewed as failing to promote the progress of science. Violent video games or pornography, for instance, may reasonably be viewed as not promoting progress in science, even though they receive protection as free speech under the First Amendment. So even if the Free Speech Clause bars Congress from banning content, does the Copyright Clause provide Congress a permissible means to discourage production of that content? This …
Content-Based Copyright Denial, Ned Snow
Content-Based Copyright Denial, Ned Snow
Faculty Publications
No principle of First Amendment law is more firmly established than the principle that government may not restrict speech based on its content. It would seem to follow, then, that Congress may not withhold copyright protection for disfavored categories of content, such as violent video games or pornography. This Article argues otherwise. This Article is the first to recognize a distinction in the scope of coverage between the First Amendment and the Copyright Clause. It claims that speech protection from government censorship does not imply speech protection from private copying. Crucially, I argue that this distinction in the scope of …
The Regressing Progress Clause: Rethinking Constitutional Indifference To Harmful Content In Copyright, Ned Snow
Faculty Publications
The Constitution's Progress Clause purports to restrict Congress's copyright power to works that "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." For most of the past two centuries, this Clause has set a minimal content-based standard for copyright eligibility. It denied protection for a work whose content did not rise to the level of useful knowledge, in that the work either lacked compositional value or portrayed an immoral or unlawful subject matter. As evidenced by judicial and scholarly writings, this construction of the Progress Clause was consistent with the 1903 decision in Bleistein v. Donaldson Lithographing Co., where the Court …
The Meaning Of Science In The Copyright Clause, Ned Snow
The Meaning Of Science In The Copyright Clause, Ned Snow
Faculty Publications
The Constitution premises Congress’s copyright power on promoting “the Progress of Science.” The word Science therefore seems to define the scope of copyrightable subject matter. Modern courts and commentators have subscribed to an originalist view of Science, teaching that Science meant general knowledge at the time of the Framing. Under this interpretation, all subject matter may be copyrighted because expression about any subject increases society’s store of general knowledge. Science, however, did not originally mean general knowledge. In this Article, I examine evidence surrounding the Copyright Clause and conclude that at the Framing of the Constitution, Science meant a system …
Fair Use As A Matter Of Law, Ned Snow
Fair Use As A Matter Of Law, Ned Snow
Faculty Publications
Courts have recently abandoned the centuries-old practice of construing fair use as an issue of fact for the jury. Fair use now stands as an issue of law for the judge. This change is threatening traditional contours of copyright law that protect fair-use speech. Courts, then, must reform their current construction of fair use by returning to its origins— fair use as a factual matter for the jury. Yet even if courts do construe fair use as a matter of fact, the question remains whether courts should ever decide fair use as a matter of law. To answer this question, …
The Forgotten Right Of Fair Use, Ned Snow
The Forgotten Right Of Fair Use, Ned Snow
Faculty Publications
Free speech was once an integral part of copyright law; today it is all but forgotten. At common law, principles of free speech protected those who expressed themselves by using another's expression. Free speech determined whether speakers had infringed a copyright. To prevail on a copyright claim, then, a copyright holder would need to prove that the speaker’s use fell outside the scope of permissible speech - or in other words, that the use was not fair. Where uncertainty prevented that proof, fair use would protect speakers from the suppression of copyright. Today, however, all this has changed. Copyright has …
Judges Playing Jury: Constitutional Conflicts In Deciding Fair Use On Summary Judgment, Ned Snow
Judges Playing Jury: Constitutional Conflicts In Deciding Fair Use On Summary Judgment, Ned Snow
Faculty Publications
Issues of fair use in copyright cases are usually decided at summary judgment. But it was not always so. For well over a century, juries routinely decided these issues. The law recognized that fair use issues were highly subjective and thereby inherently factual — unfit for summary disposition by a judge. Today, however, all this has been forgotten. Judges are characterizing factual issues as purely legal so that fair use may be decided at summary judgment. Even while judges acknowledge that reasonable minds may disagree on these issues, they characterize the issues as legal, preventing them from ever reaching a …
Proving Fair Use: Burden Of Proof As Burden Of Speech, Ned Snow
Proving Fair Use: Burden Of Proof As Burden Of Speech, Ned Snow
Faculty Publications
Courts have created a burden of proof in copyright that chills protected speech. The doctrine of fair use purports to ensure that copyright law does not trample rights of speakers whose expression employs copyrighted material. Yet those speakers face a burden of proof that weighs heavily in the fair use analysis, where factual inquiries are often subjective and speculative. Failure to satisfy the burden means severe penalties, which prospect quickly chills the free exercise of speech that constitutes a fair use. The fair-use burden of proof is repugnant to the fair use purpose. Today, copyright holders are exploiting the burden …
A Copyright Conundrum: Protecting Email Privacy, Ned Snow
A Copyright Conundrum: Protecting Email Privacy, Ned Snow
Faculty Publications
The practice of email forwarding deprives email senders of privacy. Expression meant for only a specific recipient often finds its way into myriad inboxes or onto a public website, exposed for all to see. Simply by clicking the "forward" button, email recipients routinely strip email senders of expressive privacy. The common law condemns such conduct. Beginning over two-hundred-fifty years ago, courts recognized that authors of personal correspondence hold property rights in their expression. Under common-law copyright, authors held a right to control whether their correspondence was published to third parties. This common-law protection of private expression was nearly absolute, immune …