Law Commons^™

Trademark Proprietors' "Moral Right" As An Exception To The Doctrine Of Exhaustion Of Rights In Trademarks, Sahana Simha, Ram Mohan M P

American University Business Law Review

Trademark law is primarily viewed as a consumer protection law. Proprietary and consumer interests are not always balanced. This is especially the case with the doctrine of exhaustion of rights in trademarks, where the trademark owner loses control over the further distribution of their trademarked product once sold. Existing statutory exceptions to this doctrine allow the proprietor to take action against resellers only when the product has been impaired or changed. The exceptions do not account for harm or damage to the reputation and goodwill associated with a trademark as a ground to override exhaustion. This article analyzes legislative and …

Sharing The Algorithm: The Tax Solution To Generative Ai, Jeremy Bearer-Friend, Sarah Polcz

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This article argues that tax policy offers a core tool for mitigating the sweeping public policy challenges of generative Artificial Intelligence ("AI"). Specifically, we propose a tax that would allow the public to own a share of AI itself, not just through future income tax liabilities or new excise taxes, but a proposed ownership structure that requires a one-time tax payment by generative AI firms in the form of equity.

Fractional public ownership of AI would directly address four of the key harms of AI that have been well-documented in a deep and still expanding literature. First, many types of …

Preventing Unjust Enrichment And Copyright Opportunism: An Equitable Interpretation Of Section 103(A), Pamela Samuelson, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

A stealth issue in many close copyright fair use cases is the potential invalidity of second comers’ copyrights under 17 U.S.C. § 103(a) if the secondary use is ultimately held to infringe the derivative work right. Section 103(a) of the Copyright Act says, in effect, that no copyright exists in any part of a derivative work in which the first work’s expression was “used unlawfully.” Courts have largely ignored § 103(a). But recent cases, such as Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith (2023), have raised the profile of § 103(a). This Article traces the origins, history, …

How Theories Of Art Can Inform Debates About Ai, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

Debates about artificial intelligence (AI) tend to swing between the optimistic and the apocalyptic. I propose a less binary approach that frames conversations about AI from the perspectives of theories of art and creativity. Whether we agree that AI is artificial or intelligent, whether it should be constrained or liberated, we cannot deny its influence on literary, artistic, and innovative production. AI may be described as simply a new tool to produce art and science, like the camera or the microscope, or it may transform art and science, the way the internet transformed global communication. Either way, these debates about …

Copyright Law And Property Law, Keith N. Hylton

Faculty Scholarship

Property is at the core of state law since it is the exclusive power of the individual state governments to define and protect property rights within their jurisdiction. In this paper I will discuss the general connection between copyright and property generally. I will argue that property law sheds important light on copyright law and can help us cut through modern controversies in copyright law. If I am correct in this view, any judge sufficiently familiar with property law doctrines could do better than the Supreme Court of the United States in resolving a new copyright controversy. Specifically, property law …

Streaming, Copyright And Creators: A Canadian Perspective, Graham Reynolds

All Faculty Publications

This paper will provide an introduction to streaming and copyright in Canada. It will proceed in five parts. Following this introduction, Part 2 of this paper will define streaming, discuss some of the benefits that flow from the widespread use of streaming services, and outline the extent to which streaming technologies are in use in Canada today. In so doing, this paper will distinguish between three types of streaming services: streaming services that secure authorization from rights-holders before making content available; streaming services that rely on technological measures or liability exemptions in order to host content in a non-infringing manner; …

All’S “Fair” In Love & Copyright: Copyright’S Incentivization Of Fiction Through The Second Fair Use Factor & Idea/Expression Dichotomy, Peyton J. Smetana

Catholic University Law Review

Copyright Law is supposed to encourage authors to create works of authorship, both factual and fictional. However, Copyright jurisprudence has developed to only protect expression, and not idea, to ensure the continued dissemination of knowledge. In solidifying this belief, two doctrines—Fair Use and the idea/expression dichotomy—allow for individuals to utilize other works of authorship without it being considered copyright infringement. Though widely used throughout the judicial system, the analysis for both the second Fair Use factor—Nature of the Copyrighted Work—and the idea/expression dichotomy are left without clear guidelines, leaving judges with an insurmountable task of determining what is and is …

Copyright And Research In Latin America: Law, Courts, And Perceptions, Mariana G. Valente, Alice P. Lana, André P. Houang

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

Research on the intersection of copyright law, research activities, and innovation in Latin America reveals significant deficiencies in the legal framework and public discourse surrounding copyright limitations and exceptions (L&Es) for research purposes. The problem is more visible with modern data assembling and analyzing techniques, such as through artificial intelligence (AI) systems. This study highlights the scarcity of explicit provisions for research-related exceptions in the region by examining copyright legislation, case law, and stakeholder perspectives in six Latin American countries. Despite indications that judicial interpretation is expanding the scope of L&Es, particularly in Brazil, awareness of legal nuances remains low …

A New Frontier: The Music Industry’S Struggle Against Generative Ai, Vaughn Gendron

University of Miami Business Law Review

Since the modern notion of artificial intelligence emerged in 2014, AI has rapidly developed into a technology with vast generative capabilities. This technology has allowed for the creation of copious amounts of AI-generated media content. One of the most impacted industries by this evolution is the music industry. In April of 2023, an unidentified user produced a viral AI-generated song titled “Heart on My Sleeve” in the vocal likeness of both Drake and The Weeknd. The song’s instant popularity among consumers shattered the music industry’s long-held belief that listeners would always prefer human creativity over artificial creation. This shift in …

The Grapes Of Roth, Bruce E. Boyden

Washington Law Review

Shortly after Roth Greeting Cards was decided in 1970, its offhand reference to the “total concept and feel” of the cards at issue became the dominant standard in copyright law for determining whether two works were substantially similar. That is a remarkable achievement for a phrase that, in the words of the influential Nimmer treatise, “threatens to subvert the very essence of copyright.” It nevertheless had enormous appeal for federal judges, and the reason extends well beyond copyright law. “Total concept and feel” appeared at a critical juncture for the federal judiciary, as an older model of decision-making, based on …

How Eastern Europe Can Protect Their Cultural Heritage Via Copyright Protection Of Folk Music And How This Compares To Copyright Protection Of Music In The United States, Kostika Kosova

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

This note explores the intricate interplay between cultural heritage preservation and copyright protection, focusing on the distinctive case of Eastern European folk music. It delves into the historical and cultural significance of Eastern European folk music traditions, the challenges posed to their preservation, and the copyright protection mechanisms in place across the region. In parallel, the paper provides an in-depth analysis of copyright protection in the United States, highlighting its implications for folk music.

The comparative analysis showcases the unique approaches of Eastern European nations and the United States in safeguarding their respective folk music heritages. By examining key case …

Fair Use, Licensing, And Authors' Rights In The Age Of Generative Ai, Celeste Shen

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

The rise of generative AI technologies has introduced unprecedented challenges to copyright law, particularly around the fair use of copyrighted works in AI training processes. Generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT, are trained on vast datasets that often include copyrighted material, typically without the consent of authors or compensation for use. This widespread, unauthorized use has led to legal disputes, with plaintiffs asserting that using protected texts in training AI models constitutes copyright infringement. This Note examines the application of the fair use doctrine to generative AI, analyzing each of the four statutory factors to demonstrate that generative AI’s commercial …

Kei Briefing Note 2024:8 The Basic Proposal For The Design Law Treaty (Dlt) And Its Inappropriate Restrictions On Transparency, James Love

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is holding a diplomatic conference from November 11 to 22, 2024 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to conclude and adopt a Design Law Treaty (DLT). The negotiators will be working from the documents dated May 10, 2024: a thirty-one page “Basic Proposal For The Design Law Treaty” (DLT/DC/3), and a sixteen page “Basic Proposal For The Regulations Under The Design Law Treaty” (DLT/DC/4), both documents submitted by the Director General of WIPO, as well as a nineteen page, “Notes On The Basic Proposal For The Design Law Treaty” (DTL/DC/5), prepared by the WIPO Secretariat.

While …

The Fair Use/Fair Dealing Handbook, Jonathan Band, Jonathan Gerafi

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

More than 40 countries with over one-third of the world’s population have fair use or fair dealing provisions in their copyright laws. These countries are in all regions of the world and at all levels of development. The broad diffusion of fair use and fair dealing indicates that there is no basis for preventing the more widespread adoption of these doctrines, with the benefits their flexibility brings to authors, publishers, consumers, technology companies, libraries, museums, educational institutions, and governments. This is particularly the case considering that the copyright laws in many “civil law” countries currently allow their courts to apply …

The Quest For The Fifth Freedom: Access To Data And Information In Conflict With The Protection Of Intellectual Property, Katarzyna Klafkowska-Waśniowska

Yearbook of Antitrust and Regulatory Studies

This article explores the concept of the freedom of information, linked to the goals of the European Research Area, and its relations with the evolving concept of free movement and free flow of data. Both concepts relate to the fundamental principles of the single market: free movement, non-discrimination and market access. In the context of the internal market, public authorities need to ensure market access for private economic operators in the area of goods, services, the labour market and investment. Free flow of data and information is based on the autonomous understanding of “access” – not access to the market, …

Questions And Answers On The Future Of Ip For Research And Innovation, Sean Flynn

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

This paper publishes the annotated contents of an interview with PIJIP Director Sean Flynn by the staff of WIPO’s work on the Future of IP. All questions relate to the future of copyright with respect to AI assisted innovation.

Author Remuneration In The Streaming Age – Exploitation Rights And Fair Remuneration Rules In The Eu, Martin Senftleben, Elena Izyumenko

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

The transition from linear to on-demand consumption of music, films and other copyrighted content on platforms like Spotify, Netflix and YouTube has given rise to the question whether authors and performers receive a fair share of streaming revenues. While these revenues are substantial and right holders may have the opportunity to control access to copyright-protected content on the basis of copyright protection, it is often not the creators themselves who benefit from growing streaming revenue and reinforced access controls. The issue has a global dimension. The Group of Latin American and Caribbean Countries (GRULAC) proposed that the World Intellectual Property …

Brief Of 20 Professors Of Law And Public Knowledge As Amici Curiae In Support Of Affirmance, Charles Duan, Rachel Bamberger

Amicus Briefs & Court Filings

In Carroll Shelby Licensing v. Halicki, the U.S. Court of Appeals considers whether a car in a film is a "character" for purposes of copyright law. Character copyright protection has proven to be an especially difficult area of the law, and courts and commentators have struggled with the proper boundaries of such protection and whether characters are independently protectable works at all. This brief presents a novel legal argument for resolving the scope of character copyright, at least in the context of inanimate objects in creative works such as cars. While the case law and commentary has to date focused …

Fake Drake? Ai Music Generation Implicates Copyright And The Right Of Publicity, Hope Juzon

Washington Law Review

Artificial intelligence has contributed to music composition since the 1950s. Its contributions evolved from machines that produced simple melodies to programs that generate accurate vocal imitations of singers. Modern artificial intelligence relies on pre-existing—and often copyrighted—songs to create new music, the most common of which include vocal imitations of popular singers. Copyright law in the United States has yet to address how copyright holders’ rights are implicated when artificial intelligence programs are trained on protected works. As a result, these rights holders across disciplines and sectors have filed complaints alleging infringement of their works. While copyright holders await their fate, …

Infringing Uses, Not Works, Timothy J. Mcfarlin

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

How Do You Like Your Books, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

Do you ever wonder how it is that libraries can lend books repeatedly, while copyright owners (e.g., book authors) are granted the exclusive right to distribute their copyrighted works? Or how publishers make money selling books at retail prices when a person can resell books (or buy used books) for much less (hello Amazon Used Books for under a dollar!)? The reason is because of copyright’s “first sale” doctrine, 17 U.S.C. § 109, codifying the common law’s exhaustion principle, which says owners of lawfully made copies are allowed to dispose of those copies without regard to copyright law. In other …

Fan Works And The Elusive Border Between Derivative And Transformative Uses, Aaron Schwabach

Faculty Scholarship

When Professor Schwabach began writing about fanfic and other fan works over a decade ago it was a niche topic, mostly of interest to fellow fans. It has since generated dozens of articles and a small but steadily increasing amount of litigation. In addition to several previous articles on the topic, Professor Schwabach has contributed a book (Fan Fiction and Copyright) and some book chapters to this ongoing discourse.

When this subject was new each article had to begin with a lengthy explanation of what fanfic is, why fictional characters are or are not protected by copyright, how parody and …

What The Warhol Court Got Wrong: Use As An Artist Reference And The Derivative Work Doctrine, Jessica Silbey, Eva Subotnik

Faculty Scholarship

In Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith, the Supreme Court conflated “use as an artist reference” with preparing a “derivative work.” It did so on the erroneous assumption that permission to use a copyrighted work as an artist reference is a license to prepare a derivative work. But copyright law does not necessarily deem all uses of references for making new art to be the preparation of a derivative work. In other words, not all adaptations of an original work are infringing. Some may be neither derivative works nor substantially similar copies, and some may …

Wipo General Assembly 65th: Issues Affecting The Right To Research, Sean Flynn, Andres Izquierdo

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

This paper provides background and options for countries to consider in relation to items on the agenda of the 65th meeting of the WIPO General Assembly. It is prepared by the Project on Copyright the Right to Research of the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, which includes the goal of sharing information and technical assistance to governments in international policy deliberations that impact the rights of scientific researchers in the digital context. The work of the WIPO General Assembly Agenda includes several matters that impact the rights of researchers. These include review of the work and recommendations of …

The Curious Case Of The James Brown Estate, Lee-Ford Tritt

UF Law Faculty Publications

Great musicians are larger than life, and the most iconic of them become members of an elite musical monarchy: Michael Jackson was the King of Pop, Aretha Franklin was the Queen of Soul, and Prince Rogers Nelson was Prince. Similarly, James Brown, the inventor of funk music, landed a seat at this table of legendary musicians. Although lacking a royal honorific, James Brown was "the Godfather of Soul." The Godfather of Soul, though, shared more than musical prowess with these other iconic musicians. The estates of James Brown, Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin, and Prince all continue to face legal obstacles—years …

Hard Truths About Soft Ip, Amanda Levendowski

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

People routinely refer to copyright and trademark as “soft IP” to distinguish these practices from another area of intellectual property: patent. But the term reflects implicit biases against copyright and trademark doctrine and practioners. “Soft IP” implies that patent law alone is hard, even though patents are no more physically, metaphorically or intellectually hard than copyrights and trademarks. Despite stereotypes to the contrary, patents are not necessarily more practically hard: while the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office requires technical training for patent prosecutors, which excludes many women and people of color, no such experience is necessary for most patent litigators …

Law, Language, And Authority: The Algorithmic Turn, Amanda Turnbull

PhD Dissertations

Law is formed by language and law utilizes language. Law is also like language in that it consists of social rules that aid in the structuring of society. From the time that we first put language into writing, we have been invested in the technologizing of language. There is a clear trajectory of our interest in having machines do things with language that we would otherwise do ourselves. This dissertation investigates how law’s relationship with language changes with the use of algorithmically driven technologies, and correspondingly, the consequences for the changing nature of authority since the use of language in …

Rage Against The Machine: Copyright Infringement In Ai-Generated Music, Joseph Will

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

AI-generated music has garnered significant attention, with many raising concerns about the new technology’s potential impact on both the music industry and human creativity. Others, including some musicians, have expressed excitement about AI and its potential for furthering creativity. Much focus has been placed on “deepfakes” of famous musicians, but there is also the issue of the use of copyrighted songs as training inputs for AI music generators. Some have argued that this machine learning process constitutes widespread copyright infringement, though it is not clear how courts will address this novel phenomenon. This Note examines AI-generated music through the lens …

Guilty Pleasures: The Copyright And Labor Of Reality Television, Emily Tracy

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

The Writers Guild of America’s 2023 strike forced audiences to reckon with Hollywood’s labor issues and the powerhouse unions that seek to solve them. Television networks responded with “strike-proof” fall schedules that highlighted a gap in the entertainment industry’s union membership: reality television. This Note examines and questions that gap, focusing on the labor of reality story producers and the important role it plays in creating a copyrightable product. Although copyright doctrine offers story producers little to no protection against exploitation, copyright case law implicitly recognizes story producers as, essentially, writers. This Note uses that case law to argue that …

Slowing Down Fast Fashion: How Improved Intellectual Property Law Can Protect Designers And Promote Sustainability, Julia Krzeminski

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

Fast fashion, characterized as clothing made quickly and cheaply, can be seen as a solution for consumers who want to participate in current fashion trends at price points they can afford. While creating a solution for consumers, fast fashion creates even greater problems for both the environment and the designers responsible for creating the clothing everyone wants to wear.

In order to keep up with consumer demand for low-cost, trendy items, many fast fashion retailers look to the work of other designers to determine what to create and sell. In doing so, the line between inspiration and imitation may be …