The Apocalyptic Presidential Right Of Publicity, Michael G. Bennett

Michael G. Bennett

The Apocalyptic Presidential Right of Publicity

Michael G Bennett Associate Professor Northeastern School of Law

Abstract

This article critically examines publicity rights doctrine as applied to celebrity political figures. It is particularly concerned with the prominence of science fictional concepts, theoretical frameworks and tropes in cases that mark the extreme scope of the doctrine and in the scholarship that aims to render case law rationally meaningful. And it situates President Obama and the difficult doctrinal issues his candidacy and subsequent election highlighted at the center of its analysis.

Part one of the article briefly describes the right of publicity and …

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.”

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall, Who Are You To Say Who Is Fairest Of Them All?, Ashley R. Brown

Ashley R Brown

No abstract provided.

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall, Who Are You To Say Who Is Fairest Of Them All?, Ashley R. Brown

Ashley R Brown

No abstract provided.

Substantial Similarity In Literary Infringement Cases: A Chart For Turbid Waters, Robert F. Helfing

Robert F Helfing

INTRODUCTION

"We delve once again," wrote Ninth Circuit Judge Alex O. Kozinski, "into the turbid waters of the 'extrinsic test' for substantial similarity under the Copyright Act.”[1] The court had before it a claim that a popular television series infringed the copyrights in plaintiffs’ screenplays. Precedent regarding substantial similarity is particularly confused in cases involving literary infringement, resulting in virtually automatic rejection: In the past 35 years, courts in the Ninth Circuit has allowed only three such claims to avoid summary dismissal, none since 2002 when Judge Kozinski made his remark about turbid waters. Yet, in the absence of …

Recognized Stature: Protecting Street Art As Cultural Property, Griffin M. Barnett

Griffin M. Barnett

This Article discusses the current legal regimes in the United States implicated by works of "street art." The Article suggests an amendment to the Visual Artists Rights Act that would protect certain works of street art as "cultural property" - thereby promoting the arts and the preserving important works of art that might otherwise be at the mercy of property owners or others who do not share the interests of artists and the members of communities enhanced by works of street art.

Decoding And Resisting Culture: Reception Theory And Copyright Law, Meghan M. Lydon Ms.

Meghan M. Lydon Ms.

Though there has been much academic treatment of the author’s role in copyright law, few academic articles have been published about the reader’s role. Of those articles, only one has examined copyright law through the lens of reader response theory. In her article “Everything is Transformative: Fair Use and Reader Response,” 31 Colum. J.L. & Arts 445, Laura Heyman relied on English professor Stanley Fish’s famous reader response theory to argue that all works are transformative because readers naturally interpret texts from their own perspectives and that copyright law’s transformative use test should measure the use that a community of …

Unringing The Bell: The Government Speech Doctrine And Publicly-Funded Art, John Barlow

John Barlow

No abstract provided.

Rediscovering Cumulative Creativity From The Oral Formulaic Tradition To Digital Remix: Can I Get A Witness?, Giancarlo Francesco Frosio

Giancarlo Francesco Frosio

For most of human history the essential nature of creativity was understood to be cumulative and collective. This notion has been largely forgotten by modern policies regulating creativity and speech. As hard as it may be to believe, the most valuable components of our immortal culture were created under a fully open regime with regard to access to pre-existing expressions and reuse. From the Platonic mimēsis to the Roman imitatio, from Macrobius’ Saturnalia to the imitatio Vergili, from medieval auctoritas and Chaucer the compilator to Anon the singer and social textuality, from Chrétien’s art of rewriting to Shakespeare’s “borrowed feathers,” …

Game Over For First Sale, Stephen J. Mcintyre

Stephen J McIntyre

Video game companies have long considered secondhand game retailers a threat to their bottom lines. With the next generation of gaming consoles on the horizon, some companies are experimenting with technological tools to discourage and even prevent gamers from buying and selling used games. Most significantly, a recent patent application describes a system for suppressing secondhand sales by permanently identifying game discs with a single video game console. This technology flies in the face of copyright law’s “first sale” doctrine, which gives lawful purchasers the right to sell, lease, and lend DVDs, CDs, and other media. This Article answers a …

Copyright Freeconomics, John M. Newman

John M. Newman

Innovation has wreaked creative destruction on traditional content platforms. During the decade following Napster’s rise and fall, industry organizations launched litigation campaigns to combat the dramatic downward pricing pressure created by the advent of zero-price, copyright-infringing content. These campaigns attracted a torrent of debate, still ongoing, among scholars and stakeholders—but this debate has missed the forest for the trees. Industry organizations have abandoned litigation efforts, and many copyright owners now compete directly with infringing products by offering licit content at a price of $0.

This sea change has ushered in an era of “copyright freeconomics.” Drawing on an emerging body …

Caution — Contains Extremely Offensive Material: David Wojnarowicz V. American Family Association, The Visual Artists Rights Act, And A Proposal To Expand Fair Use To Include Artists' Moral Rights, Sarah Leggin

Sarah Leggin

Although many artists build their careers by offending or challenging mainstream culture and live happily as outsiders, these and all artists still strive to protect their reputations and the integrity of their works. The importance of protecting the moral rights of artists has long been recognized by European law, but the United States has not embraced the value of artists’ rights in the same way. Today, U.S. copyright law recognizes moral rights for visual works that fall within narrow categories due to the enactment of the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA). Even after VARA was enacted and preempted …

Piracy And Video Games: Is There A Light At The End Of The Tunnel?, Maxim Tsotsorin

Maxim Tsotsorin

Over the past couple decades piracy has become a relatively low-cost business – available technology has made making a copy of a videogame as easy as ripping off a music CD on your personal laptop – with a click of a button. Digital color copiers make CD inserts that look better than originals, and printing technology allows printing on CDs without messy stickers. In the Internet universe, multitude of bit-torrents and peer-to-peer sharing platforms provide videogame pirates with an unlimited distribution market and low cost operations. The industry’s countermeasures, however, also has not stayed still. The game developers employ a …

Tattoos & Ip Norms, Aaron K. Perzanowski

Aaron K. Perzanowski

The U.S. tattoo industry generates billions of dollars in annual revenue. Like the music, film, and publishing industries, it derives value from the creation of new, original works of authorship. But unlike rights holders in those more traditional creative industries, tattoo artists rarely assert formal legal rights in disputes over copying or ownership of the works they create. Instead, tattooing is governed by a set of nuanced, overlapping, and occasionally contradictory social norms enforced through informal sanctions. And in contrast to other creative communities that rely on social norms because of the unavailability of formal intellectual property protection, the tattoo …

It's Only A Day Away: Rethinking Copyright Termination In A New Era, Shane D. Valenzi

Shane D Valenzi

January 1, 2013 will mark the beginning of an important shift in US Copyright Law. On that day, for the first time, authors who signed over their creative rights to a producer, publisher, or other “litigation-savvy” grantee under the current Copyright Act will begin to enter a window of time within which they may terminate those prior grants of rights and reclaim their original copyrights. Of course, such actions are unlikely to go unchallenged, as many of these works generate billions of dollars of revenue for their current owners. This Article will examine the “new-works termination” provision of the Copyright …

Rereading A Canonical Copyright Case: The Nonexistent Right To Hoard In Fox Film Corp. V. Doyal, Shane D. Valenzi

Shane D Valenzi

Do copyright owners have the right to hoard their creative works? The right to exclude on an individual basis is the keystone of copyright law, yet using copyright protection to prevent all public access to a work runs counter to the very premises upon which copyright law is based. This right to exclude the world from use of a creative work—referred to as the right to “hoard” by Justice O’Connor in Stewart v. Abend, is commonly traced to a Lochner-era tax case: Fox Film Corp. v. Doyal. This Article examines the right to hoard and its origins in Fox Film, …