Law Commons^™

Folsom V. Marsh And Its Legacy, L. Ray Patterson

Scholarly Works

The fair use doctrine has become so important in American copyright law that it is somewhat surprising to learn that the case credited with creating it, Folsom v. Marsh, was so poorly reasoned that it may be entitled to first place in the category of bad copyright decisions. The case was a bill in equity for copyright piracy, the style of which comes from plaintiff, Folsom, Wells and Thurston, printers and publishers, and defendants, Marsh, Capen and Lyon, booksellers.

If one of the characteristics of a bad legal decision is that it gives rise to a myth as to what …

Intellectual Property As Price Discrimination: Implications For Contract, Wendy J. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

As people become enamored with the possible benefits of allowing price discrimination in contracts for intellectual goods, they should realize that traditional intellectual property law works by fostering price discrimination among customers. This simple fact has implications for federal pre-emption, and is a reminder of the complexity of the economic issues involved. Increasing a seller's ability to price discriminate will often involve increasing his monopoly power, with dubious welfare effects.

Withdrawal Of The Reference: Rights, Rules, And Remedies For Unwelcomed Web-Linking, Walter Effross

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Legal-Ware: Contract And Copyright In The Digital Age, Michael J. Madison

Articles

ProCD, Inc. v. Zeidenberg, which enforced a shrinkwrap license for computer software, has encouraged the expansion of the shrinkwrap form beyond computer programs, forward, onto the Internet, and backward, toward such traditional works as books and magazines. Authors and publishers are using that case to advance norms of information use that exclude, practically and conceptually, a robust public domain and a meaningful doctrine of fair use. Contesting such efforts by focusing on the contractual nature of traditional shrinkwrap, by relying on market principles, on adhesion theory, on commercial law concepts of usage and custom, or on federal preemption doctrine, feeds …

The Impact Of "Fair Use" In The Higher Education Community: A Necessary Exception?, Oren R. Griffin, Stephana I. Colbert

Articles, Chapters in Books and Other Contributions to Scholarly Works

Despite legislative efforts to define it, the concept of Fair Use has been the subject of aggressive debate among publishers, authors, librarians, and users of copyrighted information ("academics") at academic institutions. With the advent of the Internet and the prospect of multimedia projects, the debate has intensified and expanded into the international community.

This Article focuses primarily on the challenges that face academic administrators and college and university attorneys seeking to advise their academic clients of the parameters of the Fair Use Doctrine-encouraging both sharing and dissemination of scholarly information, and compliance with the law, while limiting institutional liability. This …

On Commodifying Intangibles, Wendy J. Gordon, Sam Postbrief

Faculty Scholarship

It was made clear long ago that property and value are different things. Value exists. It is a fact. It can arise from law, and much of law aims at creating more value in the world. But value can also arise in spite of law (consider, for example, the fortunes that bootleggers made during the Roaring Twenties), or in law's interstices. When a particular value arises despite a lack of explicit legal protection, its possessors often ask courts or legislatures to give them a legal entitlement to preserve and further exploit that value. Typically the holders demand (1) a liberty …