Law Commons^™

Everything Is Connected, Kembrew Mcleod

Kembrew McLeod

The article discusses U.S. copyright law and the copyright clearance system, focusing on the author's documentary film "Copyright Criminals," which aired on Public Broadcasting System (PBS). It explores sampling and collage in audiovisual media, commenting on use of the practice by hip-hop group Public Enemy. Other topics include the Washington, D.C. Center for Social Media, intellectual property, and fair use. The author also examines his book "Freedom of Expression®: Resistance and Repression in the Age of Intellectual Property" and a prank in which he successfully copyrighted the phrase "Freedom of Expression"

Copyright And The First Amendment: Comrades, Combatants Or Uneasy Allies?, Joseph P. Bauer

Joseph P. Bauer

The copyright regime and the First Amendment seek to promote the same goals. Both seek the creation and dissemination of more, better and more diverse literary, pictorial, musical and other works. But, they use significantly different means to achieve those goals. The copyright laws afford to the creator of a work the exclusive right to reproduce, distribute, transform and perform that work for a extended period of time. The First Amendment, on the other hand, proclaims that Congress “shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech or of the press,” thus at least nominally indicating that limitations on …

Social Semiotics In The Fair Use Analysis, H Brian Holland

H Brian Holland

Social Semiotics in the Fair Use Analysis

34,314 words (including 380 footnotes)

This article presents an alternate theory of fair use, employing social semiotics as a process theory of meaning-making to frame the transformativeness inquiry. It is an argument for an expansion of fair use based not on theories of authorship or rights of autonomy, but rather a theory of the audience linked to social practice. The article asks, in essence, whether audiences determine the meaning, purpose, function, or social benefit of an allegedly infringing work, often regardless of what the work’s creator did or intended. If so, does this …

Social Semiotics In The Fair Use Analysis, H. Brian Holland

H. Brian Holland

Social Semiotics In The Fair Use Analysis, H. Brian Holland

H. Brian Holland

Rights, Privileges And Access To Information, Alina Ng

Alina Ng

Protecting property rights in creative works represent a classic institutional approach to a specific economic problem of non-rivalness and non-excludability of information. By providing the copyright owner with an enforceable right against non-paying members of society, copyright laws encourage the production and dissemination of literary and artistic works to society for the purposes of learning. Implicit in the grant of property rights is the assumption that commercial incentives foster creative activity and productivity. In recent years, literary and artistic works have increasingly become the subject matter of exclusive property rights and control, particularly as new technologies emerge to provide users …

Convergence And Incongruence: Trademark Law And Icann’S Introduction Of New Generic Top-Level Domains, Christine Haight Farley

Christine Haight Farley

This paper demonstrates how problematic convergences between Internet technology, the demands of a burgeoning e-market and trademark laws have created myriad issues in international governance of domain names. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the body that governs internet's infrastructure, recently approved a new policy that would allow it to accept applications for additional generic top-level domains (gTLDs). What ICANN contemplates is a uniform system to approve generic top level domains that is expected to have profound implications. Under this new plan anyone can apply for a new gTLD at any time and it could be literally …

Acta April 2010 - Analysis Of Provisions, Kimberlee G. Weatherall

Kimberlee G Weatherall

This paper analyses the potential impact of the proposed ACTA (January 2010 leaked text) on Australian law.

Good Design: A Proposal For The Proper Protection Of Market-Entry Industrial Design, Susanna Monseau

Susanna Monseau

Empirical research tells us that “[d]esign led companies have produced dramatically better share price performance for their investors.” However, in the U.S., in contrast to all European and the majority of other countries around the world, the legal system provides no specific protection for market-entry design. There is starting to be an appreciation of the importance of design to the economy and how the rise in counterfeit activity hurts designers. This paper argues that this rise in counterfeiting and piracy mean that it is important for Congress to finally create a limited protection for industrial design under U.S. law. It …

Ip Misuse As Foreclosure, Christina Bohannan

Christina Bohannan

In an age of IP expansionism, the doctrine most explicitly concerned with limiting IP overreaching has no defensible basis in IP policy. “Misuse” relates to the IP holder’s use of licenses and other arrangements to obtain rights “beyond the scope” of a statutory IP grant, but the doctrine has not established adequate principles for identifying the practices that should be condemned. The misuse doctrine evolved in patent law and concerned the tying of patented and unpatented goods. Courts held that such tying violated federal patent policy by expanding the statutory monopoly to include a second product not covered by the …

Copyright Liability For The Playing Of 'Music On Hold': Telstra Corporation Ltd V Australasian Performing Right Association Ltd, William Van Caenegem

William Van Caenegem

Extract: This is a test case brought by the Australasian Performing Rights Association (APRA), the assignee of copyright in musical and literary works for the purpose of the public performance rights (both live and mechanical), the right of transmission to subscribers to a diffusion service (the diffusion right) and the broadcast right. The question to be determined is whether Telstra (or Telecom as it was called at the outset of proceedings) by providing certain music on hold services, is liable to APRA because of a breach of their diffusion and/or broadcast rights under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). APRA sought …

Intellectual Property And Consumer Law, Andrea Stazi, Davide Mula

Andrea Stazi

Knowledge economy is led by - and leads, at the same time - a sudden and never-ending acceleration of the technological growth and the consequent development of means of social and business relationships. In this framework, the regulation of the suppliers’ right of access to the network and the consumers/users’ right of access to digital works constitutes the main challenge that lawmakers and competent authorities shall undertake. As specifically concerns the business relations between suppliers and consumers, while the former aim at providing goods and services without limits and receiving fair prices for them, the latter look forward to participating …

Constructing Commons In The Cultural Environment, Katherine J. Strandburg, Michael J. Madison, Brett M. Frischmann

Brett Frischmann

This Article sets out a framework for investigating sharing and resource pooling arrangements for information and knowledge-based works. We argue that the approach to commons arrangements in the natural environment pioneered by Elinor Ostrom and collaborators provides a template for examining the construction of commons in the cultural environment. The approach promises to lead to a better understanding of how participants in commons and pooling arrangements structure their interactions in relation to the environments in which they are embedded, in relation to information and knowledge resources that they produce and use, and in relation to one another.

An improved understanding …

Property In Law: Government Rights In Legal Innovations, Stephen Clowney

Stephen Clowney

How China Succeeded In Protecting Olympic Trademarks And Why This Success Will Not Generate Immediate Improvements In Intellectual Property Protection In China, Aileen M. Mcgill

Aileen M McGill

After centuries of stagnant growth and international isolation, China has emerged as the fastest-growing economy in the world and one of the most important parties in international trade. This staggering growth and influx of foreign goods has led to rampant counterfeiting of brand-name goods in a society with little cultural basis for individual intellectual property rights. When Beijing was awarded the 2008 summer Olympics in 2001, the Chinese government moved quickly to prepare for this beloved international event, rallying this massive country for, what many considered to be their grand emergence onto the world stage. One of the reforms enacted …

Symposium, Internet Expression In The 21st Century: Where Technology & Law Collide: Introduction, Michael R. Dimino, Tonya M. Evans-Walls, Nicole M. Santo

Michael R Dimino

Pharmaceutical Patent Bargains: The Brazilian Experience, Bruno Meyerhof Salama, Daniel Benoliel

Bruno Meyerhof Salama