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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Gpl Meets The Ucc: Does Free Software Come With A Warranty Of No Infringement Of Patents And Copyrights?, Stephen M. Mcjohn
The Gpl Meets The Ucc: Does Free Software Come With A Warranty Of No Infringement Of Patents And Copyrights?, Stephen M. Mcjohn
Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works
The GNU General Public License, known as the GPL, is the cornerstone of free software. The GPL has served as the organizing document for free software, providing a structure that has helped transformed the development of software and electronic devices. Software licensed under the GPL may be freely copied and adapted. The source code for the software is made available, to enable anyone to study and change it. The GPL does have "copyleft" restrictions, intended to keep the software free for others. If someone adapts and redistributes GPL’d software, they must likewise allow access to their source code. The GPL …
Formerly Manufacturing Entities: Piercing The "Patent Troll" Rhetoric, Kristen Jakobsen Osenga
Formerly Manufacturing Entities: Piercing The "Patent Troll" Rhetoric, Kristen Jakobsen Osenga
Law Faculty Publications
Everyone hates patent trolls-those companies that "hijack somebody else's idea" and use the patents to "extort some money" from companies that actually make things. But, despite the rhetoric, not all patent trolls are created equal. This Article is the first to focus on one type of patent troll the formerly manufacturing entity. These patent trolls used to make or do something in commerce, but now derive all or a significant portion of their income through licensing their intellectual property. Using case study analysis, this Article demonstrates that formerly manufacturing entities do not impose the harms associated with patent trolls more …
Copyright’S Private Ordering And The 'Next Great Copyright Act', Jennifer E. Rothman
Copyright’S Private Ordering And The 'Next Great Copyright Act', Jennifer E. Rothman
All Faculty Scholarship
Private ordering plays a significant role in the application of intellectual property laws, especially in the context of copyright law. In this Article, I highlight some of the dominant modes of private ordering and consider what formal copyright law should do, if anything, to engage with private ordering in the copyright space. I conclude that there is not one single approach that copyright law should take with regard to private ordering, but instead several different approaches. In some instances, the best option is for the law to get out of the way and simply continue to provide room for various …
All Of This Has Happened Before And All Of This Will Happen Again: Innovation In Copyright Licensing, Rebecca Tushnet
All Of This Has Happened Before And All Of This Will Happen Again: Innovation In Copyright Licensing, Rebecca Tushnet
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Claims that copyright licensing can substitute for fair use have a long history. This article focuses on a new cycle of the copyright licensing debate, which has brought revised arguments in favor of universal copyright licensing. First, the new arrangements offered by large copyright owners often purport to sanction the large-scale creation of derivative works, rather than mere reproductions, which were the focus of earlier blanket licensing efforts. Second, the new licenses are often free. Rather than demanding royalties as in the past, copyright owners just want a piece of the action—along with the right to claim that unlicensed uses …
Penalty Default Licenses: A Case For Uncertainty, Kristelia A. García
Penalty Default Licenses: A Case For Uncertainty, Kristelia A. García
Publications
Research on the statutory license for certain types of copyright-protected content has revealed an unlikely symbiosis between uncertainty and efficiency. Contrary to received wisdom, which tells us that in order to increase efficiency, we must increase stability, this Article suggests that uncertainty can actually be used to increase efficiency in the marketplace. In the music industry, the battle over terrestrial performance rights--that is, the right of a copyright holder to collect royalties for plays of a sound recording on terrestrial radio--has raged for decades. In June 2012, in a deal that circumvented the statutory license for sound recordings for the …