Law Commons^™

Tobacco Is A Filthy Weed And From The Devil Doth Proceed: A Study Of The Government's Efforts To Regulate Smoking On The Silver Screen, Jason Edward Lavender

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

Many of the negative effects of tobacco have been addressed by recent litigation and federal regulations. The federal government already regulates tobacco label and advertisement content and prohibits tobacco promotion on television and radio. There are lingering concerns, however, about the effects of depicting tobacco use in movies. This Note examines current tobacco regulations and the justifications asserted for new restrictions on the use of tobacco in movies. This Note further analyzes the First Amendment implications of a ban on tobacco use in movies, and concludes that such use is commercial speech that should be granted heightened Constitutional protection.

Signposts To Oblivion? Meta-Tags Signal The Judiciary To Stop Commercial Internet Regulation And Yield To The Electronic Marketplace, Craig K. Weaver

Seattle University Law Review

The focus of this Comment is not merely to analyze the role of the judiciary in Meta-Tag litigation specifically, but also to use Meta- Tags as a lens with which to examine the potential effect of judicial activism on Internet commerce in general. The first portion of this analysis focuses on the applicability of federal trademark infringement and dilution laws in Meta-Tag abuse suits. The next portion of the article evaluates why market regulation of Meta-Tag abuse is the correct course of action, in the short-term, for ensuring the growth of electronic commerce. The article concludes with a description of …

Keeping The World Safe From Naked-Chicks-In-Art Refigerator Magnets: The Plot To Control Art Images In The Public Domain Through Copyrights In Photographic And Digital Reproductions, Kathleen Connolly Butler

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

This article addresses an emerging and significant problem in the realm of copyright and art law: the control of public domain art images through the copyright of photographic and digital reproductions. This problem occurs since galleries or collections have control over the duplication of fine art images by the public and have used this control to generate exclusive reproductions of the art, which, under present law, are copyrightable themselves, precluding public use of these images of concededly public domain art. Professor Butler argues that this de facto control over art which is rightfully in the public domain both gives economic …

Hong Kong's Copyright Ordinance: How The Ban On Parallel Imports Affects The U.S. Entertainment Industry And Hong Kong's Free Market, Alison L. Morr

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

Parallel importing has attracted debate, pairing free trade and consumer choice against copyright owners and exclusive licensees' rights. Hong Kong law prevents licensees from exporting a product outside a designated area, but also forms geographic monopolies from which the exclusive licensee receives economic benefits. This Comment assesses Hong Kong's copyright protection by comparing proponent and opponent arguments, and analyzing the external pressures surrounding the passage of the Copyright Ordinance and a similar Taiwanese restriction. The focus of this Comment is on the Copyright Ordinance's effects on parallel importing in exclusive licensees' territories, specifically the influx of international entertainment products.

Trade Dress Protection For Product Configurations And The Federal Right To Copy, Margareth Barrett

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

No abstract provided.

A New Program For Action: Strengthening The Standards For Noncommercial Educational Licensees, Randi M. Albert

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

This article explores the history of noncommercial television and radio broadcasting, and evaluates the utility and efficacy of the FCC's current standards for determining when broadcasting qualifies as "noncommercial" and is eligible for benefits concomitant with this status. Professor Albert posits that, in order to effectively evaluate the existence of a commercial/noncommercial broadcast distinction at all, one must look at the development of the law in this area and determine whether the current rules are serving their stated function. To this end, the article traces the history of noncommercial broadcasting and explicates the purpose for such a status. It also …

Matthew Bender & (And) Co. V. West Publishing Co.: The End Of West's Legal Publishing Empire, Vito Petretti

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Focus On Faculty - Rebecca S. Eisenberg, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

Other Publications

As a teenager, I had a passion for studying foreign languages. I loved immersing myself in an unfamiliar idiom, struggling to make sense of another system for parsing words and sentences to describe experiences and observations. I reveled in subtle differences in the meaning of words that were sometimes, but not always, equivalents in translation. Most intriguing of all were the occasional insights I gained into the limitations of my own language when I recognized that a foreign locution simply has no English equivalent.

An Economic Analysis Of Intellectual Property Rights: Justifications And Problems Of Exclusive Rights, Incentives To Generate Information, And The Alternative Of A Government Run Reward System, Steve Calandrillo

Articles

This article examines and questions the traditional justifications for intellectual property (I.P.) rights in America (focusing on copyright and patent law), and explores incentives necessary to induce the creation of these works of information. I conclude that changes are needed to I.P. law in order to best foster society's dual goals of 1) promoting incentives to create I.P. works (such as currently patented drugs), while also 2) maximizing distribution of those products to all consumers who would stand to gain (and not merely those who can afford the monopoly price charged). Hence, I suggest the creation of a Government-Run Reward …

Impact Of Foreign Investment On Indigenous Culture: An Intellectual Property Perspective, 23 N.C. J. Int'l L. & Com. Reg. 229 (1998), Doris E. Long

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Authors As "Licensors" Of "Informational Rights" Under U.C.C. Article 2b, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

U.C.C. Articles 2B of the Uniform Commercial Code was designed primarily to regulate online and mass market transactions, particularly the licensing of computer software. Its effects, however, will extend to authors of works other than computer software. This Article considers the effects Article 2B would have on dealings between those authors and the exploiters of the authors' works. By reducing procedural barriers to the formation of licenses, Article 2B would make it all too easy for an author to assent to contract terms that may heavily favor an exploiter of the author's work. On the other hand, default contract terms …

The Tragedy Of The Anticommons: Property In The Transition From Marx To Markets, Michael A. Heller

Faculty Scholarship

Why are many storefronts in Moscow empty, while street kiosks in front are full of goods? In this Article, Professor Heller develops a theory of anticommons property to help explain the puzzle of empty storefronts and full kiosks. Anticommons property can be understood as the mirror image of commons property. By definition, in a commons, multiple owners are each endowed with the privilege to use a given resource, and no one has the right to exclude another When too many owners hold such privileges of use, the resource is prone to overuse – a tragedy of the commons. Depleted fisheries …

Ownership Of Electronic Rights And The Private International Law Of Copyright, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

When, in response to a French decision upholding the rights of employee journalists to prevent the publisher's unauthorized licensing of electronic rights in the journalists' articles, French newspaper publishers yearn for "American-style copyright," they must imagine a work-made-for-hire nirvana in which publishers dispose of all rights in contributions to their periodicals, heedless of (and legally shielded from) authors' pesty claims for payment or control. To the extent that the work-made-for-hire doctrine applies, the publishing paradise conjured up by these French fantasies of law "reform" is very real indeed. Under U.S. copyright law, employee creators are not statutory "authors;" their employer …

Symposium On Electronic Rights In International Perspective: Introduction, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

Recent litigation in the U.S., Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France has placed at issue the electronic publishing rights of employee and freelance journalists, contributors to print periodicals. In all five national controversies, the proprietors of the print publications, without securing the writers' express authorization, disseminated their articles in a variety of electronic media, including CD-ROM, third-party databases, and websites. Judicial resolution of the disputes required parsing the respective rights, under local copyright law (and in some cases, labor law as well), of the authors of the contributions to the periodicals, and of the copyright owners of the collective works …

Electronic Rights In Belgium And France: General Association Of Professional Journalists Of Belgium V. Central Station (Brussels Court Of First Instance, October 16, 1996; Brussels Court Of Appeals, October 28, 1997); Union Of French Journalists V. Sdv Plurimedia (Strasbourg Court Of Grand Instance, February 3, 1998) Symposium On Electronic Rights In International Perspective, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

Like many national presses in Europe, the Belgian press divides ideologically. Each daily newspaper represents the views of a political party, or expresses the perspective of a political or religious belief. Newspaper readers therefore tend to select the newspaper that most closely corresponds to their world-view. Ten publishers of Belgian dailies and weeklies formed a consortium, Central Station, to operate a website that would offer a crossection of all the participating periodicals' articles on a variety of subjects. The articles would appear in print in their separate newspapers in the morning, but would be available that evening on the Central …

Einstein's Hair, Jonathan A. Franklin

Michigan Journal of International Law

Review of From Privacy Toward a New Intelletual Property Right in Persona: The Right of Publicity (United States) and Portrait Law (Netherlands) Balanced with Freedom of Speech and Free Trade Principles by Julius C.S. Pinckaers

Choosing Law In Cyberspace: Copyright Conflicts On Global Networks, Andreas P. Reindl

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article contends that in the digital era, the current system of national, territorially limited copyright laws requires a flexible copyright choice of law regime. To promote certainty and predictability in the choosing of the copyright law applicable to acts of exploitation, choice of law rules should use the location of a user as the principal factor to determine the applicable copyright law. In appropriate circumstances, the choice of law rules should allow the application of a multitude of national copyright laws to single acts of use on digital networks. This article also argues that a broad application of flexible …

The Chinese System Of Administrative Protection For Pharmaceuticals, 31 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1165 (1998), J. Michael Warner, Han Xiaoquing

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Empire Strikes Back, A. Michael Froomkin

Articles

No abstract provided.

Aesthetic Ambition Versus Commercial Appeal: Adapting Novels To Film And The Copyright Law, Douglas Y'Barbo

St. Thomas Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Uncopyrightability Of Jokes, Allen Madison

Faculty Publications

This paper explains two foundational copyright doctrines, the scenes a faire doctrine and the merger doctrine. It illustrates the limiting effect these doctrines have on copyright protection for jokes.

The Impact Of "Fair Use" In The Higher Education Community: A Necessary Exception?, Oren R. Griffin, Stephana I. Colbert

Articles, Chapters in Books and Other Contributions to Scholarly Works

Despite legislative efforts to define it, the concept of Fair Use has been the subject of aggressive debate among publishers, authors, librarians, and users of copyrighted information ("academics") at academic institutions. With the advent of the Internet and the prospect of multimedia projects, the debate has intensified and expanded into the international community.

This Article focuses primarily on the challenges that face academic administrators and college and university attorneys seeking to advise their academic clients of the parameters of the Fair Use Doctrine-encouraging both sharing and dissemination of scholarly information, and compliance with the law, while limiting institutional liability. This …

Upstream Patents = Downstream Bottlenecks, Rebecca S. Eisenberg, Michael A. Heller

Articles

Thirty years ago in Science, Garrett Hardin introduced the metaphor "tragedy of the commons" to help explain overpopulation, air pollution, and species extinction. People often overuse resources they own in common because they have no incentive to conserve. Today, Hardin's metaphor is central to debates in economics, law, and science and powerful justification for privatizing commons property. While the metaphor highlights the cost of overuse when governments allow too many people to use a scarce resource, it misses the possibility of underuse when governments give too many people rights to exclude others. Privatization can solve one tragedy, but cause another.

Trade Dress Protection For Product Configurations And The Federal Right To Copy, Margreth Barrett

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Unauthorized Dissemination Of Celebrity Images On The Internet ... In The Flesh, Navin Katyal

Cleveland State Law Review

This paper will explore and analyze the unauthorized use and dissemination of celebrity images over the Internet as a violation of the copyrights of either the celebrity themselves, or the cinematographic' rights of the film production studio(s). The analysis will focus on the Copyright Act of both Canada and the United States and will be covered in three parts. Part I will define the basic nomenclature of the Internet and explain the applicability of copyright law to the Internet. Part II will focus on methods in which the celebrity and film studio can protect their copyright 'On-line' through the American-defined …

Piracy Of Intellectual Property In China And The Former Soviet Union And Its Effects Upon International Trade: A Comparison, Susan Tiefenbrun

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Copyright Issues For The Technological Classroom : What Is Permissible Under Current Copyright Law And Guidelines For Educators In The Design And Use Of Multimedia, Disance Learning, And Other Recent Technological Advances?, Anthony Kenneth Clark

Graduate Research Papers

Technologies, such as computers, Internet, electronic mail etc., offer educational institutions limitless opportunities for learning and teaching. While technological advancements encourage academia to boldly go where no one has gone before, there are legitimate copyright and intellectual property concerns that need to be addressed. The current copyright law passed in 1976, although it legally established the Fair Use principle, is inadequate given the age we live in.

To encourage dialogue, this review of the literature will explore the applicability of copyright law to educators in the electronic environment. Current law, established guidelines, and recent court decisions will be discussed in …

Recent Challenges To The Protection Of Copyright In Literary Works: A Study Of Ghana And Canada, Josephine Asmah

LLM Theses

This work traces the historical development of the concept of copyright in literary works from the earliest forms of communication by human beings until the present day. By assessing the impact of implementing the recent international copyright agreements on literary works in Ghana, a developing country, and in Canada, a developed country, the work establishes that generally, the economies of developed countries are more suitable than those of developing countries to support a strengthened copyright regime. This is more so because the former have shorter transition periods in which to comply with the international copyright framework. The work also asserts …

The Conflict Between The First Amendment And Copyright Law And Its Impact On The Internet, Stephen Fraser

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Transforming Trade Secret Theft Violations Into Federal Crimes: The Economic Espionage Act, Lorin L. Reisner

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.