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Copyright

Law Faculty Publications

2010

Articles 1 - 7 of 7

Full-Text Articles in Law

The Upside Of Intellectual Property's Downside, Christopher A. Cotropia, James Gibson Apr 2010

The Upside Of Intellectual Property's Downside, Christopher A. Cotropia, James Gibson

Law Faculty Publications

Intellectual property law exists because exclusive private rights provide an incentive to innovate. This is the traditional upside of intellectual property: the production of valuable information goods that society would otherwise never see. In turn, too much intellectual property protection is typically viewed as counterproductive, as too much control in the hands of private rightsholders creates more artificial scarcity and imposes more costs on future innovators than the incentive effect warrants. This is the traditional downside of intellectual property: reduced production and impeded innovation. This Article turns the traditional discussion on its head and shows that intellectual property’s putative costs …


The Rebirth Of Copyright As An Opt-In System?, James Gibson Jan 2010

The Rebirth Of Copyright As An Opt-In System?, James Gibson

Law Faculty Publications

For most of the history of Anglo-American copyright law, copyright was an opt-in system: Authors had to jump through certain regulatory hoops if they wanted to prevent others from copying their works without consent. These threshold formalities included registering their works with a government agency, affixing a notice to published copies, depositing exemplars with a centralized library, and more. A failure to comply with the requirements usually meant a diminution in the authors’ copyright entitlement – and in some cases a wholesale forfeiture, under which the works would pass immediately into the public domain.

After some 200 years, however, U.S. …


Viacom V. Youtube: A Different View On The District Court Ruling, James Gibson Jan 2010

Viacom V. Youtube: A Different View On The District Court Ruling, James Gibson

Law Faculty Publications

In an earlier essay in this series, Randy Picker discussed the recent copyright decision in Viacom v. YouTube, and in particular the court’s ruling that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s “safe harbor” for remote storage applies to YouTube’s online video service. I agree with Randy that the court’s interpretation of the DMCA is problematic, but I see a good argument that the outcome is correct and that the ruling should be affirmed on appeal.

Viacom v. YouTube is a hugely important case. It pits the world’s fourth-biggest media company against Internet behemoth Google, which purchased YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 …


Copyright As Censorship - Part Ii, James Gibson Jan 2010

Copyright As Censorship - Part Ii, James Gibson

Law Faculty Publications

2010 marks the 300th anniversary of the Statute of Anne, the English legislation that ushered in the modern era of copyright law. The Statute of Anne is celebrated for a number of reasons, and perhaps foremost among them is its rejection of copyright as an instrument of censorship. In a previous essay in this series, I discussed one way in which copyright law historically acted as an instrument of censorship: its refusal to grant protection to works that courts judged immoral. In this essay, I discuss copyright’s role in facilitating a different kind of censorship: lawsuits in which a copyright …


Reproduction, Distribution, And "Making Available", James Gibson Jan 2010

Reproduction, Distribution, And "Making Available", James Gibson

Law Faculty Publications

When an individual makes a music or movie file available for downloading by others, without the permission of the copyright owner, is that an infringing act? Or does infringement take place only when the file is actually downloaded?

This thorny copyright issue is at the heart of much of the controversy over file-sharing. It’s relatively simple for a copyright owner to prove that a file has been made available for download, but it’s much harder to prove that a download has actually occurred. So if liability attaches to the mere act of “making available,” record labels and movie studios will …


Who's Afraid Of The Berne Convention?, James Gibson Jan 2010

Who's Afraid Of The Berne Convention?, James Gibson

Law Faculty Publications

A few months ago, I wrote an essay for this series that argued for reinstatement of formalities as a prerequisite to copyright protection. I left unaddressed one of the main objections to such a system: the fact that international law is unfriendly to formalities. I address that objection here.

The most pertinent international law is the Berne Convention, a multilateral treaty that dates to the 1800s. Since 1908, Article 5(2) of the treaty has prevented any signatory nation from requiring formalities such as registration and notice as a condition of copyright protection. It was the United States’ accession to the …


Formalities And Tiered Copyright Protection, James Gibson Jan 2010

Formalities And Tiered Copyright Protection, James Gibson

Law Faculty Publications

In my last IP Issues entry, I discussed the advantages of reinstating formalities as prerequisites to copyright protection. In this entry, I will suggest one way in which this reinstatement might take place.

For most of modern copyright law’s existence, a work of expression received copyright protection only if the author complied with several formalities, such as registering the work with a government agency and placing a copyright notice on each copy of the work (the ubiquitous C-in-a-circle).

These formalities served two functions. The first is what I call the “threshold” function: They gave the author a chance to demonstrate …