Law Commons^™

A Uniquely Canadian Institution: The Copyright Board Of Canada, Daniel J. Gervais

Daniel J Gervais

Several countries have fostered the growth of Collective Management Organizations (CMOs) through legislative initiatives in the belief that CMOs offer a viable solution to the problems associated with individual licensing, collecting royalties and enforcing copyright against large numbers of users. In theory, collective licensing enables creators to exercise rights in a fair, efficient and accessible manner. It ensures copyright protection when individual management of it becomes difficult or impracticable. However, collective management is not a panacea, and questions have been raised about the efficiency and the transparency of CMOs and their continued relevancy in the digital age. This Chapter attempts …

Guns And Speech Technologies: How The Right To Bear Arms Affects Copyright Regulations Of Speech Technologies, Edward Lee

Edward Lee

This Essay examines the possible effect the Supreme Court’s landmark Second Amendment ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller will have on future cases brought under the Free Press Clause. Based on the text and history of the Constitution, the connection between the two Clauses is undeniable, as the Heller Court itself repeatedly suggested. Only two provisions in the entire Constitution protect individual rights to a technology: the Second Amendment’s right to bear “arms” and the Free Press Clause’s right to the freedom of the “press,” meaning the printing press. Both rights were viewed, moreover, as preexisting, natural rights to …

Copyright Infringement In The Internet Age - Primetime For Harmonized Conflict-Of-Laws Rules?, Anita B. Frohlich

Anita B Frohlich

The traditionally national nature of law endangers its very raison d’être in today’s interconnected and borderless world. Conflict-of-laws methodology may prove to represent an adequate means to maintain relevance of national legal tradition in presence of the increasingly international nature of legal disputes. Here, I propose that only a harmonized conflict-of-laws framework can achieve this goal. Specifically, I focus on international copyright law since (1) the current national jurisprudence in this field is unsatisfactory and disparate, (2) international intellectual property law has so far mostly failed to cross-fertilize with the field of conflict of laws, and (3) there have been …

Copyright And Fair Use In The New Digital Age, Jonathan R. Medina

Jonathan R Medina

This paper concerns aspects of intellectual property law in the new digital age and how Fair Use should be modified to include some user-generated content. However, users should be cautious of copyright concerns of creators and respect those rights, using their works in context.

The Pope's Copyright? Aligning Incentives With Reality By Using Creative Motivation To Shape Copyright Protection, Lydia P. Loren

Lydia P Loren

In the United States utilitarian theory posits that granting an exclusive right in creative expression will provide a necessary incentive to invest in the creation and distribution of expressive works. It is feared that without this incentive there would be insufficient motivation for creation. Indeed, it appears that the U.S. adheres completely to the notion that “no man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.” Yet the creation of many works, such as email and papel decrees, ordinarily are not motivated by monetary incentives. Nevertheless, current copyright protection fails to account for the creator’s motivation in determining the level …

Complying With The National Institutes Of Health Public Access Policy: Copyright Considerations And Options, Michael W. Carroll

Michael W. Carroll

This White Paper is written primarily for policymaking staff in universities and other institutional recipients of NIH support responsible for ensuring compliance with the Public Access Policy. The January 11, 2008, Public Access Policy imposes two new compliance mandates. First, the grantee must ensure proper manuscript submission. The version of the article to be submitted is the final version over which the author has control, which must include all revisions made after peer review. The statutory command directs that the manuscript be submitted to PMC “upon acceptance for publication.” That is, the author’s final manuscript should be submitted to PMC …

Pornography, Coercion, And Copyright Law 2.0, Ann Bartow

Ann Bartow

The lack of regulation of the production of pornography in the United States leaves pornography performers exposed to substantial risks. Producers of pornography typically respond to attempts to regulate pornography as infringements upon free speech. At the same time, large corporations involved in the production and sale of pornography rely on copyright law's complex regulatory framework to protect their pornographic content from copying and unauthorized distribution. Web 2.0 also facilitates the production and distribution of pornography by individuals. These user-generators produce their own pornography, often looking to monetize their productions themselves via advertising revenues and subscription models. Much like their …

Intellectual Property And Human Rights: Learning To Live Together, Daniel J. Gervais

Daniel J Gervais

Intellectual property and human rights must learn to live together. Traditionally, there have been two dominant views of this “cohabitation,” namely a conflict view, which emphasizes the negative impacts of intellectual property on rights such as freedom of expression or the right to health and security, and a compatibility model, which emphasizes that both sets of rights strive towards the same fundamental equilibrium. This Chapter takes the dualist view that both are right, though there is, and should be, much more truth to the second approach in the coming years.

Enough Is Enough: Time To Eliminate Design Patents And Rely On More Appropriate Copyright And Trademark Protection For Product Designs, Daniel Harris Brean

Daniel Harris Brean