Law Commons^™

The Evolution Of The Us Drm Debate, 1987-2006, Bill D. Herman

Bill D. Herman

Scholars who discuss copyright often observe that the voices for stronger copyright have more financial and political capital than their opponents and thus tend to win in Congress. While the playing field is still quite slanted toward stronger copyright, the politics around the issue are much messier and less predictable. This study, a detailed political and legislative history of the major proposals regarding copyright and digital rights management from 1987 to 2006, illustrates how this policy dynamic has changed so drastically. In 1987, there was no organized opposition to copyright’s expansion. By 2006, however, there was a substantial coalition of …

Copyright Basics, B. Douglas Robbins

B. Douglas Robbins

In this paper we discuss the fundamentals of copyright law: what sort of works are protected by copyright, what sort of works are not protected, how copyright protection operates, the term of copyright protection, and what the consequences are for copyright infringement.

Harvesting Intellectual Property: "Inspired Beginnings" And "Work Makes Work," Two Stages In The Creative Processes Of Artists And Innovators, Jessica M. Silbey

Jessica Silbey

This Article is part of a larger empirical study based on face-to-face interviews with artists, scientists, engineers, their lawyers, agents, and business partners. The book-length project involves the collecting and analysis of stories from artists, scientists, and engineers about how and why they create and innovate. It also collects stories from their employers, business partners, managers, and lawyers about their role in facilitating the process of creating and innovating. The book’s aim is to make sense of the intersection between intellectual property law and creative and innovative activity, specifically to discern how intellectual property intervenes in the careers of the …

Results-Oriented Jurisprudence: A Second Circuit Panel Meets J. D. Salinger Coming Through The Rye, Kathleen (Kate) M. O'Neill

Kathleen M. O'Neill

ABSTRACT The Second Circuit’s 2010 decision in Salinger v. Colting has been widely noticed for vacating a preliminary injunction J. D. Salinger obtained against distribution in the U.S. of Fredrik Colting’s novel, 60 YEARS LATER – COMING THROUGH THE RYE. In an opinion by Judge Guido Calabresi, the panel adopted the standard for equitable relief from eBay, Inc. v. MercExchange (U.S. 2006), overruled circuit precedent, and held that henceforth district courts must find, not presume, that irreparable harm is in fact likely before enjoining a copyright defendant’s activities. This is the first article to observe that what the Second Circuit …

Copyrighting Shakespeare: Jacob Tonson, Eighteenth Century English Copyright And The Birth Of Shakespeare Scholarship, Jeffrey M. Gaba

Jeffrey M. Gaba

In 1709, Jacob Tonson, the most significant publisher of his age, purchased the “copyright” to Shakespeare. Tonson and his family over the next fifty years went on to publish some of the most significant editions of the collected works of Shakespeare, edited by the likes of Nicholas Rowe, Alexander Pope and Samuel Johnson. In many ways, the Tonsons were responsible for the growth of Shakespeare’s popularity and the critical study of his work. This article discusses the significance of copyright to the Tonsons’ publication decisions. It suggests that the Tonson copyright did not significantly “encourage” their contributions to Shakespeare scholarship. …

Vernor V. Autodesk: Power To The...Producers?!, Elizabeth F. Wilhelm

Elizabeth F. Wilhelm

Vernor v. Autodesk, a recent case from the Ninth Circuit, threatens the very core of the first sale doctrine. Vernor radically alters the test for determining whether a transfer of a physical copy of copyrighted material is a sale or a license for the purposes of the first sale doctrine. The new test makes a transfer much more likely to be a license than a sale, possibly extending copyright protection beyond what is called for in the Copyright Act and extending the use of licensing in more media than just computer software. Many resale industries face the peril of widespread …

Triggering Infection: Distribution And Derivative Works Under The Gnu General Public License, Theresa Gue

Theresa Gue

Imagine that Microsoft discovers that its profitable program, Microsoft Word, contains lines of code borrowed from an open-source software program. Further imagine that as a result of this oversight, all users of Microsoft Word now have a license to freely distribute, reproduce, and modify Word, and Microsoft is required to provide the source code to users in order to facilitate such actions. This is the exact scenario envisioned and feared by many corporations today. It is also the reason why the GNU General Public License (“GPL”), the most popular open-source license in the world, is also the most feared. The …

Insights From Psychology For Copyright's Originality Doctrine, Cameron J. Hutchison

Cameron J Hutchison

The discipline of psychology has much to offer the law of copyright. For example, determining whether or not a work is original in a legal sense implicates, and may be enriched by, the psychology of creativity. This paper is a foray into the linkage between psychological understandings of creativity and the legal standard of originality. While the methodologies and approaches to the psychological sub-discipline of creativity are many, certain frameworks are chosen which seem most relevant and probative to the task: psychoanalysis (specifically, Jungian psychoanalysis), experimental psychology (specifically, the cognitive science of creativity or “cognitive creativity”), and social psychology (specifically, …

Copyrightability Of Choreography, Shawn Patrick Nee

shawn nee

Many choreographers are unaware of the laws that protect their works. This ignorance is not unwarranted. Dance, one of the oldest forms of art, is also one of the most seldom discussed subjects in the court system. This paper aims to discuss the copyrightability of choreography and the current customs of the dance community that attempt to work around the law. This paper is written in hopes to educate choreographers on the laws that protect the works into which they put their whole lives.

Readers' Copyright, Jessica Litman

Jessica Litman

This essay is part of a project intended to help reclaim copyright for readers, listeners, and viewers. A system of copyright protection makes little sense unless it is designed to encourage the use and enjoyment of the works it induces authors to create and publishers to disseminate. I argue that a clear-eyed examination of copyright's history reveals that solicitude for readers and members of the audience is, in fact, deeply encoded in copyright's DNA. Recently, readers' interests have faded in apparent importance in the copyright scheme in ways that have unbalanced the copyright system, and undermined public support for copyright …

A “License To Read”: The Effect Of E-Books On Publishers, Libraries, And The First Sale Doctrine, Rachel A. Berube

Rachel A Berube

E-books are rapidly displacing sales of books and transforming the way the American public understands and accesses information. Yet as e-books grow in popularity, the threat of piracy grows alongside them. Thousands of people search for pirated books online every day, and more are likely to follow as e-books become the norm rather than the exception. To displace this threat, publishers convinced Congress to abandon the first sale doctrine in favor of a market theory that allowed publishers to license, rather than sell, their copyrighted works.

Yet a decade later, Congress’ decision has not only failed to ensure publishers’ continued …

Recent Developments In Intellectual Property Law In Nigeria, Ufuoma Barbara Akpotaire

Ufuoma Barbara Akpotaire

Key Point – This article provides an overview of the developments in the field of Intellectual Property (IP) in Nigeria and highlights key issues in 10 recent judgments on IP Law in Nigeria. The cases are organized thematically according to the type of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) protected under the Nigerian legal system such as trademarks, copyrights, patents, and designs. The decision to pen this Article is borne out of a conversation with a colleague in New York, who seemed surprised to learn that I had worked as an IP lawyer in Nigeria. My colleague was aware of the existence …

Warranting Rightful Claims, Karen E. Sandrik

Karen E. Sandrik

Damage awards for patent infringement have sky-rocketed and sparked significant debate in recent years. A part of this patent damage debate focuses on non-practicing entities, or so-called “patent trolls.” A patent troll is a patent owner that demands a royalty based on patented technology, yet does not actually make use of the technology to provide an end product or service. Patent trolls are known for their aggressive and opportunistic behavior. Their strategy is simple: create nuisance and inflict fear. Often, patent trolls employ this strategy against the buyers of goods that use the patented technology. Increasingly, those buyers are availing …

Museum And Royalties: A Proposal To Facilitate Loans, Daniella Fischetti

Daniella Fischetti

This paper will consider the ways in which the principles of copyright may be extended to otherwise unprotected works thereby allowing for a system of royalties, similar to that used by ASCAP or BMI in the music industry, applicable to cultural property located outside its source county and of disputed provenance and legal controversy. While a system of royalties is predicated on the ownership of a copyright of a work in a fixed, tangible form, antiquities and other types of cultural property predate copyright, placing them in the public domain. By comparing the underlying ideas of copyright and intellectual property …

Copyright And The Vagueness Doctrine, Bradley E. Abruzzi

Bradley E Abruzzi

The Constitution’s void-for-vagueness doctrine is itself vaguely stated. The law does little to describe at what point vague laws — other than those that are entirely standardless — might be unconstitutionally vague. Rather than explore this territory, the Supreme Court has identified three “collateral factors” that affect its inclination to invalidate a law for vagueness, including (1) whether the law burdens the exercise of constitutional rights, (2) whether the law is punitive in nature, and (3) whether the law overlays a defendant-protective scienter requirement. Against this backdrop, it is fair to say that copyright law, in its current configuration, does …

Internet Creativity, Communicative Freedom And A Constitutional Rights Theory Response To “Code Is Law”, Christoph B. Graber

Christoph B. Graber

The code that regulates cyberspace empowers private bodies to set standards of Internet access and use, which are often not visible. Content filtering, as a response to copyright infringement, or models differentiating between various data transmissions are examples of measures that have been undertaken by Internet intermediaries. Arguably, they are necessary to protect intellectual property and digital business. Emanating from private bodies, such measures are beyond the reach of constitutional rights, although they may strongly impact conditions of communicative freedom and creativity on the Internet. This paper endeavours to explore from a law and society perspective whether a theory of …

The Creativity Effect (With C. Sprigman), Christopher J. Buccafusco

Christopher J. Buccafusco

No abstract provided.

Copyright As Tort, Assaf Jacob, Avihay Dorfman

Avihay Dorfman

In these pages we seek to integrate two claims. First, we argue that, taken to their logical conclusions, the considerations that support a strict form of protection for tangible property rights do not call for a similar form of protection when applied to the case of copyright. More dramatically, these considerations demand, on pain of glaring inconsistency, a substantially weaker protection for copyright. In pursuing this claim, we show that the form of protecting property rights (including rights in tangibles) is, to an important extent, a feature of certain normal, though contingent, facts about the human world. Second, the normative …

The Changing Nature Of Books And The Uneasy Case For Copyright, Niva Elkin-Koren

Niva Elkin-Koren

Digital technology penetrated the publishing industry decades ago, but it was only in the past two years, that the digital revolution finally reached the book industry, as eBooks became a viable alternative to printed books.

eBooks are not simply a fancy package for buying and selling books. They are transforming print culture. They are changing the nature of books as we know them, giving rise to new social practices of writing and reading. eBooks and digital libraries are also transforming the publishing and bookselling industries, enabling new methods of production and distribution, shaking the boundaries between the traditional players, and …

Digital Exhaustion, Aaron K. Perzanowski, Jason M. Schultz

Aaron K. Perzanowski

As digital networks emerge as the dominant means of distributing copyrighted works, the first sale doctrine is increasingly marginalized. The limitations first sale places on the exclusive right of distribution are of little importance when the alienation and use of copies entails their reproduction. This fact of the modern copyright marketplace has led to calls for statutory clarification of digital first sale rights. Acknowledging the obstacles to legislative intervention, this Article argues that courts are equipped today to limit copyright exclusivity in order to enable copy owners to make traditionally lawful uses of their copies, including resale through secondary markets. …

(Re)Introducing Formalities In Copyright : Towards More Open Content?, Severine Dusollier

Severine Dusollier

Many voices have been recently heard in favor of the reintroduction of formalities in copyright law, in order to counteract the rapid expansion of copyright protection and the ensuing diminishing of the public domain. Formalities have been considered as a way to limit the automatic granting of copyright, to shorten its duration or to make its enforcement less easy. This paper examines the relevance of a possible reintroduction of formalities for the enhancement and safeguarding of the public domain. It first considers the formalities the introduction of which (or reintroduction in some countries) has been proposed, under two lenses: their …

Warranting Rightful Claims, Karen E. Sandrik

Karen E. Sandrik

Damage awards for patent infringement have sky-rocketed and sparked significant debate in recent years. A part of this patent damages debate focuses on non-practicing entities, or so-called “patent trolls.” A patent troll is a patent owner that demands a royalty based on patented technology, yet does not actually make use of the technology to provide an end product or service. Patent trolls are known for their aggressive and opportunistic behavior. Their strategy is simple: create nuisance and inflict fear. Increasingly, buyers of goods using patented technology are availing themselves of the “warranty against infringement” (“WAI”) provided by the Uniform Commercial …

Insights From Psychology For Copyright's Originality Doctrine, Cameron J. Hutchison

Cameron J Hutchison

The discipline of psychology has much to offer the law of copyright. For example, determining whether or not a work is original in a legal sense implicates, and may be enriched by, the psychology of creativity. This paper is a foray into the linkage between psychological understandings of creativity and the legal standard of originality. While the methodologies and approaches to the psychological sub-discipline of creativity are many, certain frameworks are chosen which seem most relevant and probative to the task: psychoanalysis (specifically, Jungian psychoanalysis), experimental psychology (specifically, the cognitive science of creativity or “cognitive creativity”), and social psychology (specifically, …

The Evolution Of The Us Drm Debate, 1987-2006, Bill D. Herman

Bill D. Herman

Scholars who discuss copyright often observe that the voices for stronger copyright have more financial and political capital than their opponents and thus tend to win in Congress. While the playing field is still quite slanted toward stronger copyright, the politics around the issue are much messier and less predictable. This study, a detailed political and legislative history of the major proposals regarding copyright and digital rights management from 1987 to 2006, illustrates how this policy dynamic has changed so drastically. In 1987, there was no organized opposition to copyright’s expansion. By 2006, however, there was a substantial coalition of …

The Creativity Effect, Christopher Sprigman, Christopher Buccafusco

Christopher Sprigman

This paper reports the first experiment to demonstrate the existence of a valuation anomaly associated with the creation of new works. To date, a wealth of social science research has shown that substantial valuation asymmetries exist between owners of goods and potential purchasers of them. The least amount of money that owners are willing to accept to part with their possessions is often far greater than the amount that purchasers would be willing to pay to obtain them. This phenomenon, known as the endowment effect, may create substantial inefficiencies in many markets. Our experiment demonstrates the existence of a related …