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Scholars’ Supreme Court Amicus Brief In Support Of Neither Party: Petrella V. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Douglas Laycock, Mark P. Gergen, Doug Rendleman
Scholars’ Supreme Court Amicus Brief In Support Of Neither Party: Petrella V. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Douglas Laycock, Mark P. Gergen, Doug Rendleman
Mark P. Gergen
The appeal to the Supreme Court in Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer deals with the equitable defense of plaintiff’s laches before suing for copyright infringement. Laches is unreasonable and prejudicial delay. MGM allegedly violated plaintiff’s copyright repeatedly over a period of many years; the statute of limitations has not run on the most recent violations. Plaintiff argues that laches should never apply to a cause of action with a statute of limitations. Defendant argues that laches should bar all relief if defendant relied on plaintiff’s failure to sue earlier, without having to match defendant’s reliance to the remedies plaintiff seeks. This scholars’ …
Copyright As Contract, Jeffrey L. Harrison
Copyright As Contract, Jeffrey L. Harrison
Journal of Intellectual Property Law
Copyright is essentially a contract between the author and the public with the government acting as the agent of the public. The consideration received by authors is defined by duration and breadth of exclusivity. The consideration for the public is the creation of a "work" that will be available on a limited basis for the life of the author plus 70 years and then available without limit after that. If there were no transaction costs at all, it would be possible to "pay" authors different amounts of exclusivity. Perhaps a greeting card would get one holiday season of exclusivity, if …