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Full-Text Articles in Law
There's No Such Thing As Independent Creation, And It's A Good Thing, Too, Christopher Buccafusco
There's No Such Thing As Independent Creation, And It's A Good Thing, Too, Christopher Buccafusco
Faculty Scholarship
Independent creation is the foundation of U.S. copyright law. A work is only original and, thus, copyrightable to the extent that it is independently created by its author and not copied from another source. And a work can be deemed infringing only if it is not independently created. Moreover, independent creation provides the grounding for all major theoretical justifications for copyright law. Unfortunately, the doctrine cannot bear the substantial weight that has been foisted upon it. This Article argues that copyright law’s independent creation doctrine rests on a set of discarded psychological assumptions about memory, copying, and creativity. When those …
How Conceptual Art Challenges Copyright's Notions Of Authorial Control And Creativity, Christopher Buccafusco
How Conceptual Art Challenges Copyright's Notions Of Authorial Control And Creativity, Christopher Buccafusco
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Authorship And The Boundaries Of Copyright: Ideas, Expressions, And Functions In Yoga, Choreography, And Other Works, Christopher Buccafusco
Authorship And The Boundaries Of Copyright: Ideas, Expressions, And Functions In Yoga, Choreography, And Other Works, Christopher Buccafusco
Faculty Scholarship
This essay uses the Ninth Circuit’s opinion in Bikram’s Yoga College of India v. Evolation Yoga as an opportunity to analyze the nature of copyrightable authorship and the mechanisms that the law uses to screen out uncopyrightable content from otherwise copyrightable works. I argue that although the court likely reached the right result in Bikram, it did so in a confused and poorly supported manner. The court misunderstood the nature of the idea/expression distinction, the role of section 102(b), and the appropriate mechanism for screening out functional features of works. These aspects of the court’s opinion are widespread in copyright …