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Full-Text Articles in Law
Digital Originality, Edward Lee
Digital Originality, Edward Lee
Edward Lee
This Article examines the doctrine of originality in U.S. copyright law and proposes a reconfigured, three-part test that can better analyze issues of first impression involving works created with new digital technologies. The proposed test, encapsulated by the concept of digital originality, provides much needed guidance to courts to address the increasing complexities of digital creations in the twenty-first century.
Copyright, Death, And Taxes, Edward Lee
Copyright, Death, And Taxes, Edward Lee
Edward Lee
The Copyright Act of 1976 is due for a major revision in the 21st century, in order to keep pace with the advances in digital technologies. This Article offers a new alternative for copyright reform: tax law. Using the tax system as a way to modernize our copyright system offers several advantages. Most important, tax law can fix problems in our copyright system without violating the Berne Convention or TRIPS Agreement, and without requiring amendment to either treaty. Tax law can also be used to incentivize the copyright industries to adopt new, innovative approaches to copyright in ways that voluntary …
Measuring Trips Compliance And Defiance: The Wto Compliance Scorecard, Edward Lee
Measuring Trips Compliance And Defiance: The Wto Compliance Scorecard, Edward Lee
Edward Lee
This Article proposes the tabulation of a TRIPS Compliance Scorecard measuring a country’s attempt to correct any treaty violation that a WTO panel or the Appellate Body has found against the country. The scorecard can provide greater transparency and attention to member compliance with WTO treaty obligations, and it would enable greater cross-country comparisons. Part I surveys the number of IP disputes brought before the WTO since its inception (2005 to 2011), with particular focus on those disputes that culminated in a panel or Appellate Body decision. Part II proposes the WTO’s adoption of a TRIPS Compliance Scorecard that will …
Remixing Lessig (Reviewing Lawrence Lessig, Remix (2008)), Edward Lee
Remixing Lessig (Reviewing Lawrence Lessig, Remix (2008)), Edward Lee
Edward Lee
This book review analyzes - and remixes - Lawrence Lessig's last copyright-related book, "Remix." It takes the central ideas, including some quotations, from Remix, and transforms them with some new examples and commentary of my own. Part I summarizes and critiques Lessig’s discussion of (1) the remix and read-write (RW) culture, and (2) its relationship to the sharing, commercial, and hybrid economies. Part II discusses some of Lessig’s reform proposals for our copyright system to foster a remix culture.
Technological Fair Use, Edward Lee
Technological Fair Use, Edward Lee
Edward Lee
The Article proposes a framework tailoring fair use specifically for technology cases. At the inception of the twenty-first century, information technologies have become increasingly central to the U.S. economy. Not surprisingly, complex copyright cases involving speech technologies, such as DVRs, mp3 devices, Google Book Search, and YouTube, have increased as well. Yet existing copyright law, developed long before digital technologies, is ill-prepared to handle the complexities these technology cases pose. The key question often turns, not on prima facie infringement, but on the defense of fair use, which courts have too often relegated to extremely fact-specific decisions. The downside to …
Freedom Of The Press 2.0, Edward Lee
Freedom Of The Press 2.0, Edward Lee
Edward Lee
In today's digital age, copyright law is changing. It now attempts to regulate machines. Over the past twenty years, and particularly with the advent of the Internet, copyright holders have increasingly invoked copyright law to regulate directly - indeed, even to prohibit - the manufacture and sale of technology that facilitates the mass dissemination of expressive works. Although the concerns of copyright holders about the ease of digital copying are understandable, the expansion of copyright law to regulate - and, in some cases, to prohibit - technologies raises a troubling question. Can the government regulate under copyright law technologies that …
Guns And Speech Technologies: How The Right To Bear Arms Affects Copyright Regulations Of Speech Technologies, Edward Lee
Edward Lee
This Essay examines the possible effect the Supreme Court's landmark Second Amendment ruling in Heller will have on future cases brought under the Free Press Clause. Based on the text and history of the Constitution, the connection between the two Clauses is undeniable, as the Heller Court itself repeatedly suggested. Only two provisions in the entire Constitution protect individual rights to a technology: the Second Amendment's right to bear "arms" and the Free Press Clause's right to the freedom of the "press," meaning the printing press. Both rights were viewed, moreover, as preexisting, natural rights to the Framing generation and …
Decoding The Dmca Safe Harbors, Edward Lee
Decoding The Dmca Safe Harbors, Edward Lee
Edward Lee
The DMCA is a decade old, which, in Internet time, may well be closer to a century. Although the DMCA safe harbors have helped to foster tremendous growth in web applications in our Web 2.0 world, several very basic aspects of the DMCA safe harbors remain uncertain. These uncertainties, along with the relative lack of litigation over the DMCA in the past ten years, have threatened to undermine the whole purpose of the DMCA safe harbors by failing to inform the public and technology companies of what steps they need to undertake to fall within the safe harbors. In several …
Warming Up To User-Generated Content, Edward Lee
Warming Up To User-Generated Content, Edward Lee
Edward Lee
The most significant copyright development of the twenty first century has not arisen through any law enacted by Congress or opinion rendered by the Supreme Court. Instead, it has come from the unorganized, informal practices of various, unrelated users of copyrighted works, many of whom probably know next to nothing about copyright law. In order to comprehend this paradox, one must look at what is popularly known as "Web 2.0," and the growth of user-generated content in blogs, wikis, podcasts, "mashup" videos, and social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. Although users often create new works of their own, sometimes …