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Full-Text Articles in Law
Sneering At The Law: An Argument For Punitive Damages In Copyright, R. Collins Kilgore
Sneering At The Law: An Argument For Punitive Damages In Copyright, R. Collins Kilgore
Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law
The Copyright Act limits statutory damages in a copyright action to one award for every work that a plaintiff can prove a defendant infringed. The maximum amount a plaintiff may recover for each work is $30,000, except in the case of willful infringement, for which that amount may be increased to a maximum of $150,000. This Note explains how this dual limitation in the Copyright Act--the one-award-per-work limitation and the cap on statutory damage amounts--allows infringers to manipulate court procedures and corporate structure so that their acts of copyright infringement may maintain profitability despite the imposition of maximum statutory damages. …
Access, Progress, And Fairness:Rethinking Exclusivity In Copyright, Nicolas Suzor
Access, Progress, And Fairness:Rethinking Exclusivity In Copyright, Nicolas Suzor
Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law
This Article provides a detailed critique of the incentives-access binary in copyright discourse. Mainstream copyright theory generally accepts that copyright is a balance between providing incentives to authors to invest in the production of cultural works and enhancing the dissemination of those works to the public. This Article argues that dominant copyright theory obscures the possibility of developing a model of copyright that is able to support authors without necessarily limiting access to creative works. The abundance that the Internet allows suggests that increasing access to cultural works to enhance learning, sharing, and creative play should be a fundamental goal …
The Derivative Right, Or Why Copyright Law Protects Foxes Better Than Hedgehogs, Daniel J. Gervais
The Derivative Right, Or Why Copyright Law Protects Foxes Better Than Hedgehogs, Daniel J. Gervais
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The derivative right is at the very core of copyright theory. What can and cannot be reused to create a new work impacts freedom of expression but also impacts the value of the markets for works and their various “derivatives.” The derivative right includes forms of derivation and adaptation, such as making a movie from a novel or translating a book. It also covers what this Article refers to as penumbral derivatives, which the US Copyright Act captures using the phrase “based upon” with respect to preexisting works. This leads to indeterminacy about the scope of the derivative right, which …