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Registration Is Fundamental, Brian L. Frye, Nicole E. Pottinger
Registration Is Fundamental, Brian L. Frye, Nicole E. Pottinger
Law Faculty Scholarly Articles
Under the Copyright Act, copyright owners can file infringement actions only if registration of their copyright claim with the Copyright Office “has been made” or “has been refused.” The United States Supreme Court recently granted certiorari in Fourth Estate v. Wall-Street.com, in order to decide whether registration is “made” when a claimant files a registration application or when the Copyright Office registers the claim.
This article argues that the Court should hold that registration occurs when the Copyright Office registers the claim, in order to ensure that federal courts can benefit from the expertise of the Copyright Office. The Copyright …
Against Creativity, Brian L. Frye
Against Creativity, Brian L. Frye
Law Faculty Scholarly Articles
According to the Supreme Court, copyright requires both independent creation and creativity. The independent creation requirement provides that copyright cannot protect an element of a work of authorship that is copied from a previously existing work. But scholars disagree about the meaning of and justification for the creativity requirement.
The creativity requirement should be abandoned because it is irrelevant to the scope of copyrightable subject matter and distorts copyright doctrine by encouraging inefficient “creativity rhetoric.” The purpose of copyright is to encourage the production of economically valuable works of authorship, not creativity.