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Full-Text Articles in Law

Regulatory And Adjudicatory Functions Of The Copyright Office, Joseph Liu Mar 2016

Regulatory And Adjudicatory Functions Of The Copyright Office, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

Invited to serve on a panel at the U.S. Capitol, addressing the future of the Copyright Office. Remarks focused on the idea of granting the Copyright Office greater substantive regulatory authority.


“Private Ordering Or Public Law? The Legal Character Of Technical Standard Setting”, Joseph Liu Mar 2016

“Private Ordering Or Public Law? The Legal Character Of Technical Standard Setting”, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

Comment on Jorge L. Contreras's paper "Private Ordering or Public Law? The Legal Character of Technical Standard Setting."


Copyright Law: Essential Cases And Materials, Alfred Yen, Joseph Liu Feb 2016

Copyright Law: Essential Cases And Materials, Alfred Yen, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

This casebook emphasizes the essential cases and materials at the heart of copyright law. The result is a streamlined and well-organized casebook of manageable length that keeps the central themes of copyright front and center. It also provides access to a companion Web site containing an extensive library of additional modules, topics, edited cases, notes, problems, and audio-visual materials. Together these materials, along with a companion teacher's manual, allow teachers to easily customize the copyright law course to suit their specific goals. The authors have written extensively about copyright, the arts, and the impact of new technology.


Regulatory Copyright And The Next Great Copyright Act, Joseph Liu Feb 2016

Regulatory Copyright And The Next Great Copyright Act, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

Invited to give a lecture as part of the Loyola University of Los Angeles School of Law IP Speakers Series.


What Belongs In Copyright?, Keynote Address, Joseph Liu Oct 2015

What Belongs In Copyright?, Keynote Address, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

Keynote address at Columbia Law School conference, "Copyright Outside the Box," sponsored by the Kernochan Center for Law, Media, and the Arts.


What Belongs In Copyright?, Keynote Address, Joseph Liu Oct 2015

What Belongs In Copyright?, Keynote Address, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

Keynote address at the Columbia Law School conference, "Copyright Outside the Box," sponsored by the Kernochan Center for Law, Media, and the Arts. The conference examined copyright in areas often omitted from the traditional discussion, such as tattoos, gardens, computer-generated works and conceptual art, as well as what authorship means in the 21st century. Professor Liu was the second keynote speaker at the conference, beginning approximately 33 minutes into the video on the linked page.


Notice Failure, Fair Use, And The Limits Of Copyright As Property, Joseph Liu Sep 2015

Notice Failure, Fair Use, And The Limits Of Copyright As Property, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

Presented paper examining the concept of notice failure as applied to copyright law's fair use doctrine.


Paracopyright: A Peculiar Right To Control Access, Joseph Liu Dec 2013

Paracopyright: A Peculiar Right To Control Access, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

This Chapter analyzes the peculiar right to control access to copyrighted works, created by the U.S. Congress in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA). It argues that Congress, when it enacted the DMCA, had an overly-simplistic understanding of what it would mean to give copyright owners a right to control access to their copyrighted works. In fact, as the subsequent case law has revealed, the concept of “access” is far more complicated, nuanced, and problematic. Access itself can be taken to mean different things when referring to different types of works (e.g. literary works, movies, software, etc.). Moreover, …


The Next Great Copyright Acts: A Global Analysis Of Current Legislative And Industry Developments And Proposed Solutions For Our Modern Digital Environment, Joseph Liu Oct 2013

The Next Great Copyright Acts: A Global Analysis Of Current Legislative And Industry Developments And Proposed Solutions For Our Modern Digital Environment, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

Presentation at the International Bar Association Annual Conference in 2013.


Isp Liability Under U.S. Copyright Law, Joseph Liu Apr 2013

Isp Liability Under U.S. Copyright Law, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

Taught Foreign Copyright Law at Tsinghua University School of Law in Beijing China, and gave public lecture on ISP liability under U.S. Law.


The New Public Domain, Joseph Liu Dec 2012

The New Public Domain, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

In 1998, Congress extended the term of copyright protection, giving existing copyrighted works an additional twenty years of protection. The practical result was to freeze copyright’s public domain for a period of twenty years. This freeze is about to come to an end. Unless Congress extends the copyright term again, copyrighted works will once again pass into the public domain in 2019, after a twenty-year hiatus. This Article takes a close critical look at the issues that will arise when this happens. It argues that the unique nature of the works passing into the public domain post-2018, along with dramatic …


Editor-In-Chief Of The Journal Of The Copyright Society Of The U.S.A. For 2011-15, Joseph Liu Dec 2010

Editor-In-Chief Of The Journal Of The Copyright Society Of The U.S.A. For 2011-15, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

Appointed Editor-in-Chief of peer-reviewed academic journal focusing on copyright law.


Saving Journalism From Itself? Hot News, Copyright Fair Use And News Aggregation, Joseph Liu Apr 2010

Saving Journalism From Itself? Hot News, Copyright Fair Use And News Aggregation, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

Served as a panelist at a conference at Harvard Law School on "Journalism's Digital Transition: Unique Legal Challenges and Opportunities," sponsored by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society.


The Mechanical License And The Origins Of Regulatory Copyright, Joseph Liu Apr 2009

The Mechanical License And The Origins Of Regulatory Copyright, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

Analyzing the first compulsory license in U.S. copyright law, and arguing that it served as a template for a more "regulatory" approach to copyright law.


Two-Factor Fair Use?, Joseph Liu Feb 2008

Two-Factor Fair Use?, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

This Article engages in a thought experiment. It asks whether fair use would be improved if courts gave exclusive consideration to only two of the four statutory factors: (1) the purpose and character of the use; and (2) the impact of the use on the market.6 In other words, fair use under this proposal would be converted from a contextual multi-factor test into a two-factor balancing test in which courts would expressly and directly weigh one consideration against another. The remaining two factors, i.e., the nature of the work and the amount used, would be eliminated from consideration or, alternatively, …


Consumer Protection: Inside Copyright Law Or Outside?, Joseph Liu Mar 2007

Consumer Protection: Inside Copyright Law Or Outside?, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

Invited to participate on a panel discussing the impact of consumer protection on copyright law.


Copyright And Breathing Space, Joseph Liu Dec 2006

Copyright And Breathing Space, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

According to the U.S. Supreme Court, copyright law's fair use and idea/expression doctrines are "built-in free speech safeguards" that establish a "definitional balance" between copyright and the First Amendment. Yet these "built-in free speech safeguards" are among the most uncertain and ill-defined doctrines in all of copyright law. If we accept the Supreme Court's statement that these doctrines play a critical role as First Amendment safety valves, it follows that the chilling effect of uncertainty in these doctrines has a constitutional dimension. Current copyright law doctrine, however, fails to take into account the potential chilling effect of copyright liability. This …


Copyright And Breathing Space, Joseph Liu Oct 2006

Copyright And Breathing Space, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

According to the U.S. Supreme Court, copyright law’s fair use and idea/expression doctrines are “built-in free speech safeguards” that establish a “definitional balance” between copyright and the First Amendment. Yet these “built-in free speech safeguards” are among the most uncertain and ill-defined doctrines in all of copyright law. If we accept the Supreme Court’s statement that these doctrines play a critical role as First Amendment safety valves, it follows that the chilling effect of uncertainty in these doctrines has a constitutional dimension. Current copyright law doctrine, however, fails to take into account the potential chilling effect of copyright liability. This …


The Legal Framework Surrounding Digital Rights Management Technologies, Joseph Liu Oct 2006

The Legal Framework Surrounding Digital Rights Management Technologies, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

Providing legal framework for digital rights management.


Regulatory Copyright, Joseph Liu Dec 2003

Regulatory Copyright, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

This Article explores and examines the implications of the increasingly regulatory nature of U.S. copyright law. For many years, U.S. copyright law operated under a judicially-administered, industry-neutral property rights regime. Congress set the scope of the property entitlement, leaving the courts to enforce the entitlement and the markets to organize the production of creative works in light of the entitlement structure. In recent years, however, Congress has shown an increasing willingness to intervene more directly in the structure of copyright markets. Congress’s most recent legislative efforts are far more complex and industry-specific, allocate rights and responsibilities in a far more …


The Dmca And The Regulation Of Scientific Research, Joseph Liu Dec 2002

The Dmca And The Regulation Of Scientific Research, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

This Article analyzes the impact of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) on academic encryption research. In this Article, I argue that for both legal and practical reasons academic encryption researchers should be able to conduct and publish certain types of research without significant fear of liability under the DMCA. However, the DMCA will have a non-trivial impact on the conditions under which such research takes place, and this impact can be expected to have several undesirable effects. More broadly, this impact highlights the problematic way in which the DMCA regulates scientific research in furtherance of intellectual property rights. The …


Copyright And Time: A Proposal, Joseph Liu Oct 2002

Copyright And Time: A Proposal, Joseph Liu

Joseph P. Liu

This Article argues that courts should adjust the scope of copyright protection by considering time as a factor in fair use analysis. More specifically, the longer it has been since a copyrighted work was published, the greater the scope of fair use should be. Up to now, most of the debate over the role of time in copyright law has focused on the controversial issue of copyright duration and term extension. By focusing so narrowly on the end of the copyright term, however, this debate has neglected the more significant issue of how time should affect the scope of copyright …