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Full-Text Articles in Law
Silent Similarity, Jessica D. Litman
Silent Similarity, Jessica D. Litman
Articles
From 1909 to 1930, U.S. courts grappled with claims by authors of prose works claiming that works in a new art form—silent movies—had infringed their copyrights. These cases laid the groundwork for much of modern copyright law, from their broad expansion of the reproduction right, to their puzzled grappling with the question how to compare works in dissimilar media, to their confusion over what sort of evidence should be relevant to show copyrightability, copying and infringement. Some of those cases—in particular, Nichols v. Universal Pictures—are canonical today. They are not, however, well-understood. In particular, the problem at the heart of …
Readers' Copyright, Jessica D. Litman
Readers' Copyright, Jessica D. Litman
Articles
My goal in this project is to reclaim copyright for readers (and listeners, viewers, and other members of the audience). I think, and will try to persuade you, that the gradual and relatively recent disappearance of readers’ interests from the core of copyright’s perceived goals has unbalanced the copyright system. It may have prompted, at least in part, the scholarly critique of copyright that has fueled copyright lawyers’ impression that “so many in academia side with the pirates.” It may also be responsible for much of the deterioration in public support for copyright. I argue here that copyright seems out …
Authors' Moral Rights In Non-European Nations: International Agreements, Economics, Mannu Bhandari, And The Dead Sea Scrolls, Jeffrey M. Dine
Authors' Moral Rights In Non-European Nations: International Agreements, Economics, Mannu Bhandari, And The Dead Sea Scrolls, Jeffrey M. Dine
Michigan Journal of International Law
This note undertakes to examine authors' moral rights in non-European countries. Section I will provide a brief comparative description of moral rights. Section II will discuss the treatment of moral rights in the Berne convention and the TRIPS agreement. Section III will then examine moral rights law in India and Israel, and two important cases from these nations, Mannu Bhandari v. Kala Vikas Pictures from India, and Qimron v. Shanks, from Israel. Mannu Bhandari deals with an author's moral right in the film adaptation of her work, Qimron with the moral rights of a scholar in the reconstruction of one …
Tax Treatment Of Prepublication Expenses Of Authors And Publishers, Michigan Law Review
Tax Treatment Of Prepublication Expenses Of Authors And Publishers, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
This Note analyzes the tax treatment of prepublication costs. Part I presents the analytic framework of the business expense/ capital expenditure distinction and searches for practical, income- reflecting criteria that achieve theoretically correct results. Part II covers the historic treatment of prepublication expenditures, concluding that neither the courts nor the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) have been consistent in their approach and that both have largely ignored the income-reflecting goals outlined in Part I. Part III applies the income-reflecting approach in order to develop a principled method of examining the tax consequences of various prepublication expenses.
The Homer Of The Pacific: Melville's Art And The Ambiguities Of Judging Evil, Lee C. Bollinger
The Homer Of The Pacific: Melville's Art And The Ambiguities Of Judging Evil, Lee C. Bollinger
Michigan Law Review
Writing in 1952 of Herman Melville's work and its significance, Albert Camus praised Melville as the "Homer of the Pacific." Such Olympian fame was deserved, Camus wrote, because "[i]f it is true that talent recreates life, while genius has the additional gift of crowning it with myths, Melville is first and foremost a creator of myths." This essay concerns one aspect of those myths, Melville's exploration of man's struggle with the injustice and evil that originates from both within and without himself, and asserts its relevance to an understanding of the judicial process.