Law Commons^™

Court: Reselling Books Bought Abroad Isn't A Copyright Violation - (Quotes: Mark Mckenna), Npr’S Morning Edition, Mark Mckenna

Mark P. McKenna

Court: Reselling Books Bought Abroad Isn't A Copyright Violation interview by Dan Bobkoff quotes Mark McKenna, NPR’s Morning Edition March 20, 2013 DAN BOBKOFF, BYLINE: Once you buy a book in the U.S., you're free to lend it, throw it away or sell it. This is called the First Sale Doctrine, says law professor Mark McKenna of Notre Dame. MARK MCKENNA: This is why there are used book stores. BOBKOFF: But the question at stake in this case was whether that still applies to products sold and made in another country. Grad student Supap(ph) Kirksang(ph) made tens of thousands of …

The Copyrightability Of Nonliteral Elements Of Computer Programs, Julian Velasco

Julian Velasco

No abstract provided.

Incentives To Create Under A "Lifetime-Plus-Years" Copyright Duration: Lessons From A Behavioral Economic Analysis For Eldred V. Ashcroft, Avishalom Tor, Dotan Oliar

Avishalom Tor

In this Article, we highlight for the first time some of the significant but hitherto unrecognized behavioral effects of copyright law on individuals' incentives to create and then examine the implications of our findings for the constitutional analysis of Eldred v. Ashcroft. We show that behavioral biases - namely, individuals' optimistic bias regarding their future longevity and their subadditive judgments in circumstances resembling the extant rule of copyright duration - explain the otherwise puzzling lifetime-plus-years basis for copyright protection given to individual authors, and reveal how this regime provides superior incentives to create. Thus, insofar as the provision of increased …

What's The Frequency, Kenneth? Channeling Doctrines In Trademark Law, Mark Mckenna

Mark P. McKenna

This paper was published as a chapter in Intellectual Property and Information Wealth (Peter Yu, ed., Praeger 2007). The chapter describes several doctrines that courts have developed to limit the scope of trademark protection where there is a risk of interference with the patent or copyright schemes. It also suggests that courts have in some cases overemphasized the subject matter of protection and underemphasized parties' ability to use trademark law to capture the types of economic benefits for which patent and copyright protection are presumed necessary.

Copyright For Academics (Comparative Literature Dept.), Laura Quilter

Laura Quilter

No abstract provided.

Propuestas Para Ampliar El Acceso A Los Bienes Públicos En Argentina Estableciendo El Necesario Balance Entre Derechos De Propiedad Intelectual Y Dominio Público, Maximiliano Marzetti

Maximiliano Marzetti

Aplicamos un sistema de propiedad intelectual nacido en los albores de la revolución industrial a una sociedad del conocimiento global. Un régimen de escasez artificial choca contra la abundancia digital. Es hora de reequilibrar el balance perdido entre medios y fines, a la altura de los tiempos digitales que corren.

Defending Cyberproperty, Patricia L. Bellia

Patricia L. Bellia

This Article explores how the law should treat legal claims by owners of Internet-connected computer systems to enjoin unwanted uses of their systems. Over the last few years, this question has become increasingly urgent and controversial, as system owners have sought protection from unsolicited commercial e-mail and from robots that extract data from Web servers for competitive purposes. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, courts utilizing a wide range of legal doctrines upheld claims by network resource owners to prevent unwanted access to their computer networks. The vast weight of legal scholarship has voiced strong opposition to these cyberproperty …

Copyright And The First Amendment: Comrades, Combatants, Or Uneasy Allies?, Joseph P. Bauer

Joseph P. Bauer

The copyright regime and the First Amendment seek to promote the same goals. Both seek the creation and dissemination of more, better, and more diverse literary, pictorial, musical and other works. But, they use significantly different means to achieve those goals. The copyright laws afford to the creator of a work the exclusive right to reproduce, distribute, transform, and perform that work for an extended period of time. The First Amendment, on the other hand, proclaims that Congress "shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech or of the press," thus at least nominally indicating that limitations on the reproduction …

Refusals To Deal With Competitors By Owners Of Patents And Copyrights: Reflections On The Image Technical And Xerox Decisions, Joseph P. Bauer

Joseph P. Bauer

Under the patent and copyright laws, the owner of a patent for an invention or of a copyright for a work has the right to sell, license or transfer it, to exploit it individually and exclusively, or even to decide to withhold it from the public. By contrast, under the antitrust laws, a unilateral refusal to deal may constitute an element of a violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act, and the courts may then impose a duty on the violator to deal with others, including possibly with its actual or would-be competitors. The central question addressed by this …

Addressing The Incoherency Of The Preemption Provision Of The Copyright Act Of 1976, Joseph P. Bauer

Joseph P. Bauer

Section 301 of the Copyright Act of 1976 expressly preempts state law actions that are within the "general scope of copyright" and that assert claims that are "equivalent to" the rights conferred by the Act. The Act eliminated the previous system of common law copyright for unpublished works, which had prevailed under the prior 1909 Copyright Act. By federalizing copyright law, the drafters of the statute sought to achieve uniformity and to avoid the potential for state protection of infinite duration. The legislative history of § 301 stated that this preemption provision was set forth "in the clearest and most …

Intellectual Property Defenses, Alex Stein, Gideon Parchomovsky

Alex Stein

This Article demonstrates that all intellectual property defenses fit into three conceptual categories: general, individualized, and class defenses. A general defense challenges the validity of the plaintiff’s intellectual property right. When raised successfully, it annuls the plaintiff’s right and relieves not only the defendant, but also the entire world of the duty to comply with it. An individualized defense is much narrower in scope: Its successful showing defeats the specific infringement claim asserted by the plaintiff, but leaves the plaintiff’s right intact. Class defenses form an in-between category: They create an immunity zone for a certain group of users to …

Tpp – Australian Section-By-Section Analysis Of The Enforcement Provisions Of The August Leaked Draft, Kimberlee G. Weatherall

Kimberlee G Weatherall

This paper analyses the leaked 30 August 2013 text of the TPP IP Chapter from an Australian perspective, focusing on the enforcement provisions only. The goal is to assess the compatibility of provisions in the current draft with Australian law and Australia’s international obligations: including TRIPS and the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA).

Reading the IP provisions of the TPP IP chapter leak dated August 2013 is a maddening, dispiriting process. The provisions are written like legislation, not treaty, suggesting a complete lack of good faith and trust on the part of the negotiating countries. There are subtle tweaks of …

Guidelines To Limit Criminal Prosecutions Of Filesharing Services, Benton C. Martin, Jeremiah R. Newhall

Benton C. Martin

This short essay acknowledges certain efficiencies in enforcing copyright law against "secondary" infringers like filesharing services through criminal proceedings, but it proposes guidelines for prosecutors to use in limiting prosecutions against this type of infringer.

The Origins Of American Design Patent Protection, Jason John Du Mont, Mark D. Janis

Jason John Du Mont

Many firms invest heavily in the way their products look, and they rely on a handful of intellectual property regimes to stop rivals from producing look-alikes. Two of these regimes—copyright and trademark—have been closely scrutinized in intellectual property scholarship. A third, the design patent, remains little understood except among specialists. In particular, there has been virtually no analysis of the design patent system’s core assumption: that the rules governing patents for inventions should be incorporated en masse for designs. One reason why the design patent system has remained largely unexplored in the literature is that scholars have never explained how …

Copyright And Fair Use In Higher Education, Laura Quilter

Laura Quilter

No abstract provided.

Access And Exclusion Rights In Electronic Media:Complex Rules For A Complex World, Daniel A. Farber

Daniel A Farber

No abstract provided.

Rediscovering The Constitutional Origins Of Copyright, Laura Quilter

Laura Quilter

Copyright law now governs each paper you write, each email you send, every snapshot you take with your smartphone, and even the notes you jot on scraps of paper. Meanwhile, courts and scholars have begun rediscovering copyright's Constitutional origins. Where is this going, and what effect will it have on those of us who create, learn from, teach, and preserve the products of the Copyright Clause?

Open Access Interview With Michael W. Carroll, Michael W. Carroll

Michael W. Carroll

Banksy Got Back? Problems With Chains Of Unauthorized Derivative Works And Arrangement Rights In Cover Songs Under A Compulsory License, Matthew Adam Eller Esq.

Matthew Adam Eller

This note will analyze the scope of copyright ownership in relation to chains of unauthorized derivative works and chains of arrangement rights in “cover” versions of musical recordings. In particular, the analysis will focus on the gray area in the law where an unauthorized derivative work is created by (“D1”) and then another author creates a second derivative work (“D2”) based off of D1. In situations such as these does the creator of the original derivative work have any rights in their creation if their derivative work was unauthorized? Further, depending on what rights do exist for D1, can the …

Beyond Napster: Using Antitrust Law To Advance And Enhance Online Music Distribution, Matthew Fagin, Frank Pasquale, Kim Weatherall

Frank A. Pasquale

What should be the broad principles guiding the copyright and competition policy governing online music? In short, what are the key concerns or values that we want preserved in relation to the distribution of music online? We will outline the background to the present investigations and existing law in Part I and argue in Part II that these concerns can be encapsulated in two broad areas: (1) the preservation of some scope for private and personal use and (2) the encouragement and growth of a diverse sector for the distribution of copyrighted works online. We also argue that, at least …

Toward An Ecology Of Intellectual Property: Lessons From Environmental Economics For Valuing Copyright's Commons, Frank Pasquale

Frank A. Pasquale

The fair use defense in copyright law shields an intellectual commons of protected uses of copyrighted material from infringement actions. In determining whether a given use is fair, courts must assess the new use's potential effect on the market for the copyrighted work. Fair use jurisprudence too often fails to address the complementary, network, and long-range effects of new technologies on the market for copyrighted works. These effects parallel the indirect, direct, and option values of biodiversity recently recognized by environmental economists. Their sophisticated methods for valuing natural resources in tangible commons can inform legal efforts to address the intellectual …

Copyright In An Era Of Information Overload: Toward The Privileging Of Categorizers, Frank Pasquale

Frank A. Pasquale

Environmental laws are designed to reduce negative externalities (such as pollution) that harm the natural environment. Copyright law should adjust the rights of content creators in order to compensate for the ways they reduce the usefulness of the information environment as a whole. Every new work created contributes to the store of expression, but also makes it more difficult to find whatever work one wants. Such search costs have been well-documented in information economics. Copyright law should take information overload externalities like search costs into account in its treatment of alleged copyright infringers whose work merely attempts to index, organize, …

Breaking The Vicious Circularity: Sony's Contribution To The Fair Use Doctrine, Frank Pasquale

Frank A. Pasquale

The fair use doctrine permits certain uses of copyrighted material that are unauthorized by the copyright holder. In 1984, the Supreme Court decided in Sony v. Universal Studios (Sony) that unauthorized home taping of television programs was a fair use of such programs. Decried by the dissent and frequently contested in ensuing cases, that decision sealed the majority's case that the videotape recorder was capable of substantial non-infringing uses and therefore legal. In the twenty years since Sony, the dissent's skepticism about the fairness of time-shifting has gotten about as warm a reception in appellate courts as the majority's position. …

Rankings, Reductionism, And Responsibility, Frank Pasquale

Frank A. Pasquale

After discussing how search engines operate, and sketching a normative basis for regulation of the rankings they generate, this piece proposes some minor, non-intrusive legal remedies for those who claim that they are harmed by search engine results. Such harms include unwanted (but high-ranking) results relating to them, or exclusion from high-ranking results they claim they are due to appear on. In the first case (deemed inclusion harm), I propose a right not to suppress the results, but merely to add an asterisk to the hyperlink directing web users to them, which would lead to the complainant's own comment on …

Slaves To Copyright: Branding Human Flesh As A Tangible Medium Of Expression, Arrielle S. Millstein

Arrielle S Millstein

This paper argues why human flesh, because of its inherent properties and its necessity for human survival, should not qualify as a tangible medium of expression under the Copyright Act of 1976. Through policy concerns and property law this paper demonstrates why the fixation requirement, necessary to obtain copyright protection of a “work,” must be flexible and eliminate human flesh as an acceptable, tangible medium of expression, to avoid the disastrous risk of the court falling into the role of “21st Century judicial slave masters.”

A Submission To The Australian Law Reform Commission On Copyright And The Digital Economy: It Pricing, Matthew Rimmer

Matthew Rimmer

EXECUTIVE SUMMARYThis submission draws upon a number of pieces of research on copyright and consumer rights – including:1. Matthew Rimmer, 'Clash of the Titans: Apple, Adobe, and Microsoft Under Fire at the IT Pricing Inquiry', The Conversation, 22 March 2013, https://theconversation.edu.au/clash-of-the-titans-apple-adobe-and-microsoft-under-fire-at-it-pricing-inquiry-128782. Matthew Rimmer, 'When the Price is Not Right: Technology Price Gouging in Australia', The Conversation, 23 November 2012, http://theconversation.edu.au/when-the-price-is-not-right-technology-price-gouging-in-australia-105823. Matthew Rimmer, 'IT Pricing: Copyright Law, Consumer Rights, and Competition Policy', A submission to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Infrastructure and Communications Inquiry into IT Pricing, 19 September 2012, http://works.bepress.com/matthew_rimmer/121/In addition, this submission draws upon a number of …

Migración A La Nube: ¿Está Segura Nuestra Información?, Rodolfo C. Rivas Rea Esq., Marco A. Vargas Iñiguez Esq.

Rodolfo C. Rivas

The authors discuss the benefits and risks of moving your business data to the cloud through case studies and offer practical tips to protect business confidential information stored in the cloud. //////////////////////// Los autores estudian los beneficios y los riesgos de almacenar datos e información en la nube a través de casos de estudio y ofrecen consejos prácticos para proteger la información comercial confidencial almacenada en la nube.

Recent Fair Use Cases, And Trends To Watch : Acrl Copyright Update, Laura Quilter

Laura Quilter

No abstract provided.

(Visual) Art And Copyright : Copyright In Nonprint Media, Laura Quilter

Laura Quilter

No abstract provided.

David Trager: Jurist, Jeffrey B. Morris

Jeffrey B. Morris

No abstract provided.