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Full-Text Articles in Law
Copyright Corner: The Adoption Of Ucita In Maryland, Harvey K. Morrell
Copyright Corner: The Adoption Of Ucita In Maryland, Harvey K. Morrell
All Faculty Scholarship
In the December 1999 issue of AALL Spectrum, Charles Cronin provided a fine overview of the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA) and its potential impact on libraries. As he indicated, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) offered UCITA to several state legislatures for consideration, with Maryland and Virginia vying to become the first state to enact it. Virginia, whose legislative session began a couple of months before Maryland’s and whose process did not allow much opposition, was first across the line. However, one amendment, included near the end of the process, delayed implementation of the …
Where Have You Gone, Fair Use: Document Delivery In The For-Profit Sector, James S. Heller
Where Have You Gone, Fair Use: Document Delivery In The For-Profit Sector, James S. Heller
Library Staff Publications
No abstract provided.
Simultaneous Copyright And Trade Secret Claims: Can The Copyright Misuse Defense Prevent Constitutional Doublethink?, Ralph D. Clifford
Simultaneous Copyright And Trade Secret Claims: Can The Copyright Misuse Defense Prevent Constitutional Doublethink?, Ralph D. Clifford
Faculty Publications
As the Constitution authorizes Congress to grant copyrights, it subjects the power to a public purpose requirement. Any monopoly Congress grants must be for the purpose of “promot[ing] the progress of science and useful arts.” But one result of Congress enacting the 1976 Act is a potential conflict between the Act and this public purpose requirement. An owner of intellectual property may believe that both copyright law – which mandates disclosure – and trade secret law – which mandates secrecy – can be used simultaneously. To believe that disclosure and secrecy can coexist is doublethink as both cannot be true. …
The Paradoxes Of Free Software, Stephen M. Mcjohn
The Paradoxes Of Free Software, Stephen M. Mcjohn
Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works
This paper describes the legal structure of open source software and analyzes the likely issues to arise. A combination of copyright law and trademark law serves to permit the free distribution of open source software. The software is kept under copyright, but freely licensed under one of various open source licenses. The legal structure of open source is an elegant and robust use of intellectual property law that turns the customary use of intellectual property on its head, by using intellectual property laws, which normally are used to guard exclusive rights, to safeguard free access to and use of software. …
Copyright And The Perfect Curve, Julie E. Cohen
Copyright And The Perfect Curve, Julie E. Cohen
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
This essay argues that the assumption that “progress” is qualitatively independent of the underlying entitlement structure is wrong. In particular, I shall argue that a shift to a copyright rule structure based on highly granular, contractually enforced “price discrimination” would work a fundamental shift, as well, in the nature of the progress produced. The critique of the contractual price discrimination model, moreover, exposes deep defects in the use of neoclassical “law and economics” methodology to solve problems relating to the incentive structure of copyright law. What is needed, instead, is an economic model of copyright that acknowledges the central role …
Resolving Tensions Between Copyright And The Internet, Walter Effross
Resolving Tensions Between Copyright And The Internet, Walter Effross
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
No abstract provided.
Complexity And Copyright In Contradiction, Michael J. Madison
Complexity And Copyright In Contradiction, Michael J. Madison
Articles
The title of the article is a deliberate play on architect Robert Venturi's classic of post-modern architectural theory, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. The article analyzes metaphorical 'architectures' of copyright and cyberspace using architectural and land use theories developed for the physical world. It applies this analysis to copyright law through the lens of the First Amendment. I argue that the 'simplicity' of digital engineering is undermining desirable 'complexity' in legal and physical structures that regulate expressive works.
Classroom Lecture For Copyright Law, Wendy J. Gordon
Classroom Lecture For Copyright Law, Wendy J. Gordon
Scholarship Chronologically
The differences between direct, vicarious and contributory liability, Section 512 in related matters. Alright, now let's move on to the next question, which is criminal liability. You read some material on that. And the basic lessons that I want you to take from the material are the following. First, notice that federal copyright law does not impose criminal liability easily as ordinary laws of tangible property do. And I think that that's a good thing. Remember that guy in Les Miserables who's pursued for stealing a loaf of bread. Stealing in the sense of copying one song would not make …
Fine-Tuning Tasini: Privileges Of Electronic Distribution And Reproduction, Wendy J. Gordon
Fine-Tuning Tasini: Privileges Of Electronic Distribution And Reproduction, Wendy J. Gordon
Faculty Scholarship
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is arguably the soundest copyright court in the nation. In Tasini v. New York Times, it handled a challenge brought by a group of freelance writers against publishers and database proprietors. The controversy, now pending in the United States Supreme Court, has wide importance because it will determine what entitlements attach to a publisher who purchases a privilege to include a freelancer's story in the publisher's magazine or newspaper. Essentially, the issue is whether a publisher, who has not purchased the story's copyright and has not obtained an explicit …
The Constitutionality Of Copyright Term Extension: How Long Is Too Long?, Wendy J. Gordon, Jane C. Ginsburg, Arthur R. Miller, William F. Patry
The Constitutionality Of Copyright Term Extension: How Long Is Too Long?, Wendy J. Gordon, Jane C. Ginsburg, Arthur R. Miller, William F. Patry
Faculty Scholarship
I am Professor William Patry of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. I will be the moderator of this star-studded debate on the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.
Copyright, Wendy J. Gordon, Robert G. Bone
Copyright, Wendy J. Gordon, Robert G. Bone
Faculty Scholarship
Copyright is the branch of Intellectual Property Law that governs works of expression such as books, paintings and songs, and the expressive aspects of computer programs. Intellectual products such as these have a partially public goods character: they are largely inexhaustible and nonexcludable. Intellectual Property Law responds to inexcludability by giving producers legal rights to exclude nonpayers from certain usages of their intellectual products. The goal is to provide incentives for new production at fairly low transaction costs. However, the copyright owner will charge a price above marginal cost and this, coupled with the inexhaustibility of most copyrighted products, creates …
Copyright As A Model For Free Speech Law: What Copyright Has In Common With Anti-Pornography Laws, Campaign Finance Reform, And Telecommunications Regulation, Rebecca Tushnet
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Copyright raises real and troubling free speech issues, and standard responses to those concerns are inadequate. This Article aims to put copyright in the context of other free speech doctrine. Acknowledging the link between copyright and free speech can help determine the proper contours of a copyright regime that both allows and limits property rights in expression, skewing the content of speech toward change.
Extending Copyright And The Constitution: "Have I Stayed Too Long", Michael H. Davis
Extending Copyright And The Constitution: "Have I Stayed Too Long", Michael H. Davis
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
On October 27, 1998, President Clinton signed into law the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, Pub. L. No. 105-298, 112 Stat. 2827 (hereinafter the “Bono Law”). The Bono Law extended the term of copyright protection by an additional twenty years, both prospectively and retrospectively. The former is probably constitutionally proper; the latter is almost certainly forbidden by the Constitution's copyright clause. But most criticism5 has not forcefully distinguished between retrospective as opposed to prospective extension and so far has failed to convince either Congress or the courts of any constitutional infirmity. This is because most critics agree-or …
The Screenwriter's Indestructible Right To Terminate Her Assignment Of Copyright: Once A Story Is 'Pitched' A Studio Can Never Obtain All Copyrights In The Story, Michael Henry Davis
The Screenwriter's Indestructible Right To Terminate Her Assignment Of Copyright: Once A Story Is 'Pitched' A Studio Can Never Obtain All Copyrights In The Story, Michael Henry Davis
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
It is probably not quite fraud, though it comes terribly close to it, when motion picture and television production companies convince their writers to part with the rights to their stories when they sign with the companies. Despite contracts that claim the writer has no rights to the resulting script (either because the author has assigned his rights “in perpetuity” or because he has agreed to produce a “workfor hire”), U.S. copyright law provides many authors, perhaps the vast majority of them, with a future right that cannot be lost and can always be regained, irrespective of any written contract …
Copyright And Parody: Touring The Certainties Of Property And Restitution, Wendy J. Gordon
Copyright And Parody: Touring The Certainties Of Property And Restitution, Wendy J. Gordon
Faculty Scholarship
One of the supposed certainties of the common law is that persons need not pay for benefits they receive except when they have agreed in advance to make payment. The rule takes many forms. One of the most familiar is the doctrine that absent a contractual obligation, a person benefited by a volunteer ordinarily need not pay for what he has received. This rule supposedly both encourages economic efficiency and respects autonomy.