Law Commons^™

Eldred's Aftermath: Tradition, The Copyright Clause, And The Constitutionalization Of Fair Use, Stephen M. Mcjohn

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Eldred v. Ashcroft offered the Supreme Court broad issues about the scope of Congress's constitutional power to legislate in the area of intellectual property. In 1998, Congress added twenty years to the term of all copyrights, both existing and future copyrights. But for this term extension, works created during the 1920s and 1930s would be entering the public domain. Now such works will remain under copyright until 2018 and beyond. Eldred v. Ashcroft rejected two challenges to the constitutionality of the copyright extension. The first challenge contended that Congress had exceeded its power to grant copyrights for "limited Times" in …

Copyrighting Facts, Michael S. Green

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

No Trespassing, Matthew Rimmer

Matthew Rimmer

Eva Hemmungs Wirten is an associate professor in Library and Information Science at the University College of Boras and Gothenburg University in Sweden. Her work is primarily concerned with the interaction between print culture, globalization, and intellectual property rights. Eva Hemmungs Wirten is not a lawyer by training; instead her background lies in publishing. In her writing, she relies upon an interdisciplinary approach drawing on book history, cultural studies, law, and studies on globalization both in the humanities and social sciences. Her new book called No Trespassing is a fresh and original contribution to the field of intellectual property. It …

The Dead Poets Society: The Copyright Term And The Public Domain, Matthew Rimmer

Matthew Rimmer

In a victory for corporate control of cultural heritage, the Supreme Court of the United States has rejected a constitutional challenge to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act 1998 (U.S.) by a majority of seven to two. This paper evaluates the litigation in terms of policy debate in a number of discourses - history, intellectual property law, constitutional law and freedom of speech, cultural heritage, economics and competition policy, and international trade. It argues that the extension of the copyright term will inhibit the dissemination of cultural works through the use of new technologies - such as Eric Eldred's …

Albert Namatjira: Copyright Estates And Traditional Knowledge, Matthew Rimmer

Matthew Rimmer

Albert Namatjira was Australia's first Indigenous professional artist. He adapted Western-style painting to express his cultural knowledge of the Arrernte country, for which he was a traditional custodian. In his lifetime, Albert Namatjira achieved great acclaim for his exceptional ability as an artist. However, after his untimely death, he was ignored by the mainstream Australian art world, because of the aesthetic prejudices and social policies of the time. A recent exhibition entitled Seeing the Centre: The art of Albert Namatjira (1902-1959) curated by Alison French has sought to redress this neglect, and provide a retrospective of his work.The exhibition has …

To Whom Does A New Use Belong?: An Analysis Of The New Use Doctrine And The Protection It Affords After Random House V. Rosettabooks, Megan M. Gillespie

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

The decision in Random House v. RosettaBooks has the potential to transform the publishing industry and the licensing agreements so commonly relied upon. Courts have attempted to reconcile application of the new use doctrine for decades, and yet with every conceived new use there is another interpretation of the rules of the copyright game. In this Note, the author examines the Random House decision in light of the New Use Doctrine and proposes contract-based solutions to new use issues that may avoid the uncertainty of the doctrine as it currently stands.

'Information Feudalism: Who Owns The Knowledge Economy. A Book Review' (2003) 21 (1) Prometheus 127-132, Matthew Rimmer

Matthew Rimmer

Back in 1995, Peter Drahos wrote a futuristic article called ‘Information feudalism in the information society’. It took the form of an imagined history of the information society in the year 2015. Drahos provided a pessimistic vision of the future, in which the information age was ruled by the private owners of intellectual property. He ended with the bleak, Hobbesian image:"It is unimaginable that the information society of the 21st century could be like this. And yet if abstract objects fall out of the intellectual commons and are enclosed by private owners, private, arbitrary, unchecked global power will become a …

Reconciling What The First Amendment Forbids With What The Copyright Clause Permits: A Summary Explanation And Review, William W. Van Alstyne

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

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 …

What Federal Gun Control Can Teach Us About The Dmca's Anti-Trafficking Provisions, Alfred C. Yen

Alfred C. Yen

This article studies the so-called "anti-trafficking provisions" of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") by drawing insight from federal gun control. Among other things, the anti-trafficking provisions criminalize the distribution of technology that circumvents the encryption schemes sometimes used to protect digital files. This prohibition even applies to the sale of circumvention technology for lawful purposes. Not surprisingly, this result has generated controversy. Consumer advocates and civil libertarians have argued that it is wrong to criminalize the sale of technology that has lawful use, particularly when that criminalization makes it difficult - if not impossible - for the public to …

Ucita, Copyright, And Capture, Deborah S. Tussey

Deborah S. Tussey

No abstract provided.

Beyond Blue Gene: Intellectual Property And Bioinformatics, Matthew Rimmer

Matthew Rimmer