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Cleveland State University

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Copyright

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Sight And Sound In The Legal Writing Classroom: Engaging Students Through Use Of Contemporary Issues, Karin M. Mika Apr 2013

Sight And Sound In The Legal Writing Classroom: Engaging Students Through Use Of Contemporary Issues, Karin M. Mika

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Using the Fair Use Act as the basis of a research problem done in conjunction with YouTube music videos presents a variety of ways to demonstrate the range of situations in which the Fair Use Act might apply. Karin Mika discusses ways to force students to think in depth about various scenarios while comparing and contrasting them. As an example, when comparing two similar musical compositions using a Fair Use factor analysis, one need only concentrate on the notes and the various choruses in the songs. However, when combining a song with a video, the nature of the composition changes. …


The Tangled Web Of Plagiarism Litigation: Sorting Out The Legal Issues, Ralph D. Mawdsley Jan 2009

The Tangled Web Of Plagiarism Litigation: Sorting Out The Legal Issues, Ralph D. Mawdsley

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The purpose of this article is to explore the increasing complexity of plagiarism litigation in the United States. A determination as to when attribution is necessary in order to avoid a charge of plagiarism raises questions of intent and subject matter specific questions of general knowledge, as well as constitutional and contractual questions of fairness, tort questions of defamation, and questions of fair use under copyright law or misrepresentation under the Lanham Act. Most of the reported cases still involve students who contest discipline from their respective academic institutions--discipline that can range from a course penalty to expulsion from the …


Extending Copyright And The Constitution: "Have I Stayed Too Long", Michael H. Davis Jan 2000

Extending Copyright And The Constitution: "Have I Stayed Too Long", Michael H. Davis

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

On October 27, 1998, President Clinton signed into law the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, Pub. L. No. 105-298, 112 Stat. 2827 (hereinafter the “Bono Law”). The Bono Law extended the term of copyright protection by an additional twenty years, both prospectively and retrospectively. The former is probably constitutionally proper; the latter is almost certainly forbidden by the Constitution's copyright clause. But most criticism5 has not forcefully distinguished between retrospective as opposed to prospective extension and so far has failed to convince either Congress or the courts of any constitutional infirmity. This is because most critics agree-or …


The Screenwriter's Indestructible Right To Terminate Her Assignment Of Copyright: Once A Story Is 'Pitched' A Studio Can Never Obtain All Copyrights In The Story, Michael Henry Davis Jan 2000

The Screenwriter's Indestructible Right To Terminate Her Assignment Of Copyright: Once A Story Is 'Pitched' A Studio Can Never Obtain All Copyrights In The Story, Michael Henry Davis

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

It is probably not quite fraud, though it comes terribly close to it, when motion picture and television production companies convince their writers to part with the rights to their stories when they sign with the companies. Despite contracts that claim the writer has no rights to the resulting script (either because the author has assigned his rights “in perpetuity” or because he has agreed to produce a “workfor hire”), U.S. copyright law provides many authors, perhaps the vast majority of them, with a future right that cannot be lost and can always be regained, irrespective of any written contract …