Law Commons^™

Yours For Keeps: Mgm V. Grokster, Max Oppenheimer

All Faculty Scholarship

In MGM v. Grokster, now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, all parties have made the assumption that most P2P file transfers infringe copyrights. Two theories contradict that assumption: a significant number of individuals who transfer files over P2P networks may have a license to do so, and the Copyright Act itself may exempt the transfer of certain categories of entertainment files over P2P networks from the definition of infringement.

Solving The Digital Piracy Puzzle: Disaggregating Fair Use From The Dmca's Anti-Device Provisions, Jacqueline D. Lipton

Articles

Copyright law has always involved balancing creative pursuits against innovations in copying, distribution and, more recently, encryption technologies. A significant problem for copyright law is that many such technologies can be utilized for both socially useful and socially harmful purposes. It is difficult to regulate such technologies in a way that prevents social harms while at the same time facilitating social benefits. The most recent example of this dynamic is evident in the 2005 United States Supreme Court decision in MGM v Grokster - dealing with digital file-sharing technologies. This article draws from the file sharing debate in considering another …

The Purpose Of Copyright Law In Canada, Daniel J. Gervais

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

IN THREE RECENT CASES, the Supreme Court of Canada provided several pieces of the Canadian copyright policy puzzle. We now know that the economic purpose of copyright law is instrumentalist in nature, namely, to ensure the orderly production and distribution of, and access to, works of art and intellect. The Court added that copyright can not enter carelessly into the private sphere of individual users. By targeting end-users in recent lawsuits, copyright holders have also found out that it is difficult to enforce a right that has not been properly internalized. After reviewing the Supreme Court trilogy of cases, the …

Reconsidering The Dmca, R. Polk Wagner

All Faculty Scholarship

patents, Law and economics, prosecution history estoppel, doctrine of equivalents, ex ante, ex post, default rules, PTO, Federal Circuit, patent prosecution, patent litigation, intellectual property, patent reform, patent administration, patent office

Rewriting Fair Use And The Future Of Copyright Reform, Michael J. Madison

Articles

This Essay describes a social practices approach to the production of creative expression, as a construct to guide reform of copyright law. Specifically, it reimagines copyright's fair use doctrine by basing its statutory text explicitly on social practices. It argues that the social practices approach is consistent with the historical development of the fair use doctrine and with the policy goals of copyright law, and that the approach should be recognized in the text of the statute as well as in judicial applications of fair use.

The Future Of Copyright, Lawrence B. Solum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Review of Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity by Lawrence Lessig (2004).

Sometimes technological change is so profound that it rocks the foundations of an entire body of law. Peer-to-peer (P2P) filesharing systems--Napster, Gnutella, KaZaA, Grokster, and Freenet3--are mere symptoms of a set of technological innovations that have set in motion an ongoing process of fundamental changes in the nature of copyright law. The video tape recorder begat the Sony substantial noninfringing use defense. The digital cassette recorder begat the Audio Home Recording Act. The internet begat the Digital …