Law Commons^™

No Flash Photography Please: An Analysis Of Corporate Use Of Street Art Under Section 120(A) Of The Awcpa, Sierra Epke

University of Miami Law Review

Street art and graffiti are pervasive artforms found throughout the world and throughout history. While the artforms have been associated with crime and vandalism in the past, they have increasingly been featured in different capacities from art galleries to corporate marketing campaigns. With street art’s growing recognition and popularity, corporations have begun to use the medium to target new customer bases. In some situations, the use of artwork in marketing campaigns is unsanctioned by the artist. Therefore, courts have now begun to examine the balance between copyright protection for street artists and the corporate use of street art. Section 120(a) …

The Higher-Cost Problem: How The Case Act Addresses The History Of Inequity In The American Copyright Regime, Michael Newell

University of Miami Law Review

The legislative history of copyright law in the United States and its judicial interpretation resulted in a complex web of statutes and doctrine theoretically meant to further the constitutional goal of “promot[ing] the Progress of Science and the useful Arts.” But because of its complexity, enforcing rights against infringers in federal court became prohibitively expensive for most. The American copyright regime simultaneously allowed the music industry to unfairly profit from the creativity of the under-resourced—particularly, musicians of color.

This Note discusses the disparate impact of the American copyright regime. Then, the Note discusses the Copyright Alternatives in the Small-Claims Enforcement …

Gotta Catch ‘Em All!: The National Diet’S Inadequate Attempt To Control Manga Pirates, Sydney Landers

University of Miami Law Review

Internet piracy threatens Japan’s most popular cultural exports: manga and anime. Fans have taken to translating and distributing the works online for other fans to enjoy because official translated versions of manga and anime are released overseas later than the original in Japan, or they are never released at all. In order to combat the illegal downloading and distributing of manga, the National Diet, Japan’s legislature, passed an amendment to the Japanese Copyright Act that increases punishments for leech sites and illegal downloading of manga.
This Note discusses the manga and anime industries and their struggles with piracy before reviewing …

What Is Standard Tomorrow, May Not Have Been Today: An Argument For Claiming ScèNes À Faire, Logan Sandler

University of Miami Law Review

Recent lawsuits involving the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise and the Oscar award-winning movie The Shape of Water required courts to wrestle with the application of the decisive scènes à faire doctrine. In doing so, the Ninth Circuit exposed the doctrine’s chief pitfall: the lack of a temporal framework.
The modern scènes à faire doctrine limits the scope of what authors can claim as substantially similar by excluding the standard or stock elements in a given expressive work from copyright protection. Courts will often conclude that a contested element is scènes à faire if it can be demonstrated that …