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Owning Digital Copies: Copyright Law And The Incidents Of Copy Ownership, Joseph P. Liu
Owning Digital Copies: Copyright Law And The Incidents Of Copy Ownership, Joseph P. Liu
Joseph P. Liu
As copyrighted works are increasingly distributed in digital form over the Internet, our conventional print-based understandings of the rights associated with copy ownership are coming into increasing conflict with the copyright owner's right to restrict copying. Specifically, certain common activities, such as reading and transferring physical copies of copyrighted works (such as books), are increasingly being viewed as potential acts of copyright infringement when applied to digital copies. This Article explores this conflict by taking a close look at the concept of copy ownership. It argues that conventional notions of physical property ownership play an important, unrecognized role in copyright …
Sports Merchandizing, Publicity Rights, And The Missing Role Of The Sports Fan, Joseph P. Liu
Sports Merchandizing, Publicity Rights, And The Missing Role Of The Sports Fan, Joseph P. Liu
Joseph P. Liu
Sports fans play a tremendously important role in the success and popularity of sports teams and the enterprise of sports in general. It is somewhat curious, then, that fan interests are almost entirely missing from discussions about certain important legal issues that have a direct impact on them. Specifically, fan interests play a surprisingly limited role in discussions about sports team merchandising and player rights of publicity. This Article argues that modern sports licensing practices are coming into increasing conflict with the interests of sports fans, and that the law should take greater account of such interests. This Article starts …
Copyright Law's Theory Of The Consumer, Joseph P. Liu
Copyright Law's Theory Of The Consumer, Joseph P. Liu
Joseph P. Liu
Copyright law has a rather well-developed theory of the author, but it has no similarly well-developed conception of the consumer. This exploratory Article is an attempt to begin piecing together a coherent image of the copyright consumer. The author argues that copyright law currently conceives of consumers in one of two ways, either as passive consumers of copyrighted works or as active authors in their own right. This binary conception of the consumer, however, is incomplete, as it neglects important and complex consumer interests in autonomy, communication, and creative self-expression. By examining these additional interests, it is possible to begin …