Law Commons^™

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.

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,” …

Institutionalized Word Taboo: The Continuing Saga Of Fcc Indecency Regulation, Christopher M. Fairman

Christopher M Fairman

Indecency regulation by the Federal Communication Commission and Supreme Court is the product of word taboo—the subconscious, emotional, involuntary avoidance of certain words out of fear that some harm will occur if they are spoken. Acting in tandem, the Court and the Commissioners create institutionalized word taboo based upon the assumption that broadcast media’s pervasive and intrusive presence into the home endangers unsupervised children. Technological innovation renders this premise invalid today, but institutionalized word taboo remains. This article (1) traces the rise of indecency regulation, (2) explains the invalidity of the assumptions used to justify it, (3) introduces word taboo …

Why Copyright Law Lacks Taste And Scents, Leon R. Calleja

Leon R Calleja

This paper explores the resistance in U.S. copyright law to extend copyright protection to scents and tastes, and advances the position that copyright law’s originality and expression requirements limit copyrightable subject matter to expressions that engage both author and audience in a way that requires reflection upon the work—or at least, the capacity for reflection—in a necessarily intersubjective and communicative fashion, what I call a “public dimension.” That the sensations of taste and smell are inescapably immediate and private suggest that they lack the kind of public dimension that visual and audio works exhibit. Indeed, this creates an ineffability characterized …

Emerging Technologies And Dwindling Speech, Jorge R. Roig

Jorge R Roig