Law Commons^™

Copyright And The First Amendment: Comrades, Combatants, Or Uneasy Allies?, Joseph P. Bauer

Joseph P. Bauer

The copyright regime and the First Amendment seek to promote the same goals. Both seek the creation and dissemination of more, better, and more diverse literary, pictorial, musical and other works. But, they use significantly different means to achieve those goals. The copyright Laws afford to the creator of a work the exclusive right to reproduce, distribute, transform, and perform that work for an extended period of time. The First Amendment, on the other hand, proclaims that Congress "shall make no Law... abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, " thus at least nominally indicating that limitations on …

The Illusion Of Copyright Infringement Protection, Jenny Small

Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Draft Of The Concept Of "Harm" In Copyright - 2013, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

This essay examines the tort of copyright infringement. It argues that the ideas of "harm" and "fault" already play a role in the tort’s functioning, and that an ideally reformulated version of the tort should perhaps give a more significant role to “harm.” The essay therefore examines what “harm” can or should mean, reviewing four candidates for cognizable harm in copyright law (rivalry-based losses, foregone fees, loss of exclusivity, and subjective distress) and canvassing three philosophical conceptions of “harm” (counterfactual, historical-worsening, and noncomparative). The essay identifies the appropriateness vel non of employing, in the copyright context, each harm-candidate and each …

Is Your Itunes Playlist Worth Six Figures? Due Process, Statutory Damages, And Peer-To-Peer Copyright Infringement , Ryan M. Hrobak

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Copyright And Freedom Of Expression: Saving Free Speech From Advancing Legislation, Amanda Beshears Cook

Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property

The Supreme Court has expressly recognized the possibility of a First Amendment defense to copyright infringement claims, but it has never actually found such a defense to apply to a case before it. And nearly every year, Congress enacts or attempts to enact more legislation that restricts speech under the banner of the copyright clause. The problem is that the natural right of free speech is being depleted by the legislatively granted right of intellectual property, putting both individual liberty and the public good at risk. Congress and the courts both must begin to acknowledge that in the common law …

Rohauer Revisited: "Rear Window," Copyright Reversions, Renewals, Terminations, Derivative Works And Fair Use , Richard Colby

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

States Escape Liability For Copyright Infringement?, Michelle V. Francis

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Graduated Response American Style: “Six Strikes” Measured Against Five Norms, Annemarie Bridy

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

In 2008, in recognition of the DMCA’s inadequacy in the face of P2P file sharing, and with the high-profile case of Arista Records v. Lime Group pending in federal district court in New York, then New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo began pressuring broadband providers to agree voluntarily to play a greater role in fighting online infringement. Subsequently, the Obama administration, represented nationally by the Office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC) and internationally by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), expressly endorsed the concept of privately negotiated anti-piracy collaborations between corporate rights owners and …

You Can’T Go Home Again: The Righthaven Cases And Copyright Trolling On The Internet, Ian Polonsky

Kernochan Center for Law, Media, and the Arts

In the Norwegian folktale Three Billy Goats Gruff, three goats seeking to get fat on the greener pastures of a distant hillside were stopped at the foot of a bridge by a “great ugly troll, with eyes as big as saucers, and a nose as long as a poker.” The troll allowed the first two goats to pass when they assured him of a larger goat to come. Unfortunately, the troll bit off more than he could chew: the third goat was larger than the troll and not the least bit intimidated. The goat launched himself at the troll …

International Covergence On The Need For Third Parties To Become Internet Copyright Police (But Why?), Dennis S. Karjala

Richmond Journal of Global Law & Business

No abstract provided.

Copyright Infringement Of Music: Determining Whether What Sounds Alike Is Alike, Margit Livingston, Joseph Urbinato

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The standard for copyright infringement is the same across different forms of expression. But musical expression poses special challenges for courts deciding infringement disputes because of its unique attributes. Tonality in Western music offers finite compositional choices that will be pleasing or satisfying to the ear. The vast storehouse of existing public domain music means that many of those choices have been exhausted. Although independent creation negates plagiarism, the inevitable similarity among musical pieces within the same genre leaves courts in a quandary as to whether defendant composers infringed earlier copyrighted works or simply found their own way to a …

Copyright Freeconomics, John M. Newman

Articles

Innovation has wreaked creative destruction on traditional content platforms. During the decade following Napster's rise and fall, industry organizations launched litigation campaigns to combat the dramatic downward pricing pressure created by the advent of zero-price, copyright-infringing content. These campaigns attracted a torrent of debate among scholars and stakeholders regarding the proper scope and role of copyright law-but this ongoing debate has missed the forest for the trees. Industry organizations have abandoned litigation efforts, and many copyright owners now compete directly with infringing products by offering legitimate content at a price of $0.00.

This sea change has ushered in an era …

The Concept Of 'Harm' In Copyright, Wendy J. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

This essay examines the tort of copyright infringement. It argues that the ideas of "harm" and "fault" already play a role in the tort’s functioning, and that an ideally reformulated version of the tort should perhaps give a more significant role to “harm.” The essay therefore examines what “harm” can or should mean, reviewing four candidates for cognizable harm in copyright law (rivalry-based losses, foregone fees, loss of exclusivity, and subjective distress) and canvassing three philosophical conceptions of "harm" (counterfactual, historical-worsening, and noncomparative). The essay identifies the appropriateness vel non of employing, in the copyright context, each harm-candidate and each …

The Impact Of Codification On The Judicial Development Of Copyright, Christopher S. Yoo

All Faculty Scholarship

Despite the Supreme Court’s rejection of common law copyright in Wheaton v. Peters and the more specific codification by the Copyright Act of 1976, courts have continued to play an active role in determining the scope of copyright. Four areas of continuing judicial innovation include fair use, misuse, third-party liability, and the first sale doctrine. Some commentators have advocated broad judicial power to revise and overturn statutes. Such sweeping judicial power is hard to reconcile with the democratic commitment to legislative supremacy. At the other extreme are those that view codification as completely displacing courts’ authority to develop legal principles. …