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Full-Text Articles in Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law

What Notice Did, Jessica Litman May 2016

What Notice Did, Jessica Litman

Jessica Litman

In this article, I explore the effect of the copyright notice prerequisite on the law's treatment of copyright ownership. The notice prerequisite, as construed by the courts, encouraged the development of legal doctrines that herded the ownership of copyrights into the hands of publishers and other intermediaries, notwithstanding statutory provisions that seem to have been designed at least in part to enable authors to keep their copyrights. Because copyright law required notice, other doctrinal developments were shaped by and distorted by that requirement. The promiscuous alienability of U.S. copyrights may itself have been an accidental development deriving from courts' constructions …


Work Made For Hire – Analyzing The Multifactor Balancing Test, Ryan G. Vacca Jan 2015

Work Made For Hire – Analyzing The Multifactor Balancing Test, Ryan G. Vacca

Ryan G. Vacca

Authorship, and hence, initial ownership of copyrighted works is oftentimes controlled by the 1976 Copyright Act’s work made for hire doctrine. This doctrine states that works created by employees within the scope of their employment result in the employer owning the copyright. One key determination in this analysis is whether the hired party is an employee or independent contractor. In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court, in CCNV v. Reid, answered the question of how employees are distinguished from independent contractors by setting forth a list of factors courts should consider. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court did not give further guidance on …


Rediscovering Cumulative Creativity From The Oral Formulaic Tradition To Digital Remix: Can I Get A Witness?, Giancarlo Francesco Frosio Mar 2013

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,” …


On Virtual Worlds: Copyright And Contract At The Dawn Of The Virtual Age, Erez Reuveni Jan 2007

On Virtual Worlds: Copyright And Contract At The Dawn Of The Virtual Age, Erez Reuveni

Erez Reuveni

This Article argues that copyright law can and should apply to artistic and literary creations occurring entirely in virtual worlds. First, the Article introduces the concept of virtual worlds as places millions of people visit not only for entertainment but also for life and work. Second, the Article reviews the philosophical justifications for copyright, examines objections to applying copyright to virtual, rather than real, creative works, and concludes that neither precludes copyright for virtual creations. Third, the Article articulates how copyright law would function within virtual spaces and reviews copyrightable creations from the perspective of both game developers and players. …