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Price Discrimination, Personal Use And Piracy: Copyright Protection Of Digital Works, Michael J. Meurer
Price Discrimination, Personal Use And Piracy: Copyright Protection Of Digital Works, Michael J. Meurer
Faculty Scholarship
The growth of digital information transmission worries copyright holders who fear the new technology threatens their profits because of greater piracy and widespread sharing of digital works. They have responded with proposals for expanded protection of digital works. Specifically, they seek restrictions on personal use rights regarding digital works provided by the fair use and first sale doctrines. The proposed changes in the allocation of property rights to digital information significantly affect the ability of copyright holders to practice price discrimination. Broader user rights make discrimination more difficult; broader producer rights make discrimination easier. I argue that more price discrimination …
Legislative Inaction On The Information Superhighway: Bargaining In The Shadow Of Copyright Law, Maureen A. O'Rourke
Legislative Inaction On The Information Superhighway: Bargaining In The Shadow Of Copyright Law, Maureen A. O'Rourke
Faculty Scholarship
As a practical matter, the development of law in the form of enacted legislation often does not keep pace with societal change. At first glance, this fact seems somewhat disturbing since the law, according to some philosophies, should reflect social consensus. However, this is neither remarkable nor cause for concern. The law's processes are deliberative, involving time-consuming public testimony and debate. Thus, the law often plays "catch-up" with social change. This reactive rather than pro-active decision-making is generally desirable as the law is likely to change to reflect well-considered social judgments rather than passing social fancies. This column briefly examines …
On The Economics Of Copyright, Restitution And 'Fair Use': Systemic Versus Case-By-Case Responses To Market Failure, Wendy J. Gordon
On The Economics Of Copyright, Restitution And 'Fair Use': Systemic Versus Case-By-Case Responses To Market Failure, Wendy J. Gordon
Faculty Scholarship
The 'public goods' characteristics possess by intangible works of authorship and invention present the basic market failure problem usually relied on to justify intellectual property rights. What is ordinarily less emphasized is that such market failure is no more than half of the prerequisite for an economically desirable copyright or patent system: another requisite condition is that there be less costly market imperfections after intellectual property is instituted than there would have been in the absence of the intellectual property regime. Intellectual property rights are best justified in the presence of "asymmetric market conditions", that is where (1) in the …
Copyright Preemption After The Procd Case: A Market-Based Approach, Maureen A. O'Rourke
Copyright Preemption After The Procd Case: A Market-Based Approach, Maureen A. O'Rourke
Faculty Scholarship
As information becomes increasingly available in digital form, a little noted yet significant legal change is occurring in the way in which information providers use the law to establish the terms under which they market their products. Electronic information providers, in contrast to their hard-copy counterparts, have continually turned to the private law of contract both to supplement and modify the public law of copyright.' While this trend began when most users were relatively large commercial, academic, or governmental enterprises, it accelerated as software providers began to market pre-packaged software to consumers, using the infamous "shrinkwrap" as a device to …
Rethinking Remedies At The Intersection Of Intellectual Property And Contract: Toward A Unified Body Of Law, Maureen A. O'Rourke
Rethinking Remedies At The Intersection Of Intellectual Property And Contract: Toward A Unified Body Of Law, Maureen A. O'Rourke
Faculty Scholarship
As society continues to move "on-line"' and technology advances in fields such as biotechnology, a paradigm shift is occurring. Investors are focusing less on asset valuations based on the physical goods owned by a particular firm and more on the value of intangibles-the information and know-how possessed by the firm and embodied in its intellectual property rights. Firms and even entire industries have grown up with the primarily paper assets of patents and copyrights.