Law Commons^™

What Kinds Of Statutory Restrictions Are Jurisdictional?, Scott Dodson

Faculty Publications

Section 411(a) of the Copyright Act of 1976 provides that “no civil action for infringement of the copyright in any United States work shall be instituted until preregistration or registration of the copyright claim has been made.” In this case, a district court approved a class action settlement that purported to resolve both registered and unregistered copyright claims. The Supreme Court is being asked to decide whether that registration requirement is a limitation on federal court subject-matter jurisdiction.

From Mbube To Wimoweh: African Folk Music In Dual Systems Of Law, Deborah Wassel

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A Hole In Need Of Mending: Copyright And The Individual Marking Of Advertisements Published In Collective Works, Randy D. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

Over 20 years ago, the United States brought its copyright law into sync with international norms through the adoption of the Berne Convention. As a result, copyright notice is no longer a prerequisite to copyright protection. But because Congress implemented the Berne Convention through amendments to the (rather than adoption of a wholly new) Copyright Act, litigants have argued and at least some courts have held that certain works still must be noticed. This Article is concerned to rebut that contention.

Who Owns Bratz? The Integration Of Copyright And Employment Law, Michael D. Birnhack

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Copyright Or Trademark? Can One Boy Wizard Prevent Film Title Duplication?, Anna Phillips

San Diego International Law Journal

This Comment will examine the various approaches that India, the United Kingdom, and the United States take in dealing with film title disputes. Second, this Comment will discuss a case brought by Warner Brothers regrding a Harry Potter film title dispute in India and how the outcome of the case affects title infringement issues... Finally, this Comment will discuss a possible loophole in current trademark regulations regarding film titles that will support the argument that countries should use both copyright and trademark law to minimize the release of film titles that are similar or identical to those already on the …

One Size Does Not Fit All: A Framework For Tailoring Intellectual Property Rights, Michael W. Carroll

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

The United States and its trading partners have adopted cultural and innovation policies under which the government grants one-size-fits-all patents and copyrights to inventors and authors. On a global basis, the reasons for doing so vary, but in the United States granting intellectual property rights has been justified as the principal means of promoting innovation and cultural progress. Until recently, however, few have questioned the wisdom of using such blunt policy instruments to promote progress in a wide range of industries in which the economics of innovation varies considerably.

Provisionally accepting the assumptions of the traditional economic case for intellectual …

Vol. Vi, Tab 38 - Ex. 28 - Email From Christopher Klipple, Christopher Klipple

Rosetta Stone v. Google (Joint Appendix)

Exhibits from the un-sealed joint appendix for Rosetta Stone Ltd., v. Google Inc., No. 10-2007, on appeal to the 4th Circuit. Issue presented: Under the Lanham Act, does the use of trademarked terms in keyword advertising result in infringement when there is evidence of actual confusion?

Copyright Social Utility And Social Justice Interdependence: A Paradigm For Intellectual Property Empowerment And Digital Entrepreneurship, Lateef Mtima

West Virginia Law Review

While advances in digital information technology offer extraordinary possibilities for the exploration and exploitation of literary and artistic expres- sion, these advances also present unprecedented opportunities for intellectual property ("IP") empowerment and the achievement of singular milestones in copyright social justice. The ostensible conflict between copyright digital social utility and digital commoditization has engendered a reemphasis upon the social engineering obligations of the copyright law, and a search for copyright policies which will harmonize these corrivallous objectives. Doctrinal constructions of the copyright law which acknowledge the law's congenital social justice charac- teristics, however, can achieve this equilibrium. The revisualization of …

The Copyright Revision Act Of 2026, Jessica Litman

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

American copyright law is broken. In fact, its failings are leading lawyers and scholars to find resourceful strategies to work around the deficiencies in the current state of the law. These strategies, the lecturer argues, indicate that a fundamental overhaul of copyright law is imminent. After lamenting the disconnect between academia and the practicing bar and examining the present laws' shortcomings felt by authors, distributors, and consumers alike, the lecturer provides three goals a new copyright regime should meet. First, copyright law should be more easily accessible and, likewise, understandable for non-lawyers. Second, the new copyright laws should reduce the …

Three Cases: A Practitioner's Life In Copyright, Mary Jane Sanders

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

In this speech, the lecturer highlights three influential Supreme Court decisions on copyright law and explains how these cases have influenced her career. The lecturer explains that the highlighted cases had a lasting impact on the intellectual property world and are still applicable to today's copyright practitioners. Even though intellectual property law now involves more cutting edge technology, issues such as copyright infringement, copyright ownership, and the award of attorney fees will always be fundamental to any copyright litigation.

Copyright Law And The Restoration Of Beauty, David Nimmer

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Memorial To Barbara Ringer, Peter Jaszi

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

The story goes that in 439 BC the retired consul Cincinnatus was summoned from the plow by the Senate and people of Rome. One more time, he saw the Republic through a time of particular peril, resigning office immediately afterwards to return to his rural retirement - to be transmuted into a timeless emblem of selfless probity. Episodes of this kind are even rarer in the annals of the U.S. civil service than in the Roman history. But I had the good fortune to be a witness to one such - Barbara Ringer's return to the Library of Congress in …

A Tale Of (At Least) Two Authors: Focusing Copyright Law On Process Over Product, Laura A. Heymann

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Coding Privacy, Lilian Edwards

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Lawrence Lessig famously and usefully argues that cyberspace is regulated not just by law but also by norms, markets and architecture or "code." His insightful work might also lead the unwary to conclude, however, that code is inherently anti-privacy, and thus that an increasingly digital world must therefore also be increasingly devoid of privacy. This paper argues briefly that since technology is a neutral tool, code can be designed as much to fight for privacy as against it, and that what matters now is to look at what incentivizes the creation of pro- rather than anti-privacy code in the mainstream …

Peer-To-Peering Beyond The Horizon: Can A P2p Network Avoid Liability By Adapting Its Technological Structure?, Matthew G. Minder

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Peer-to-peer networks are often used to infringe copyrights, but they also serve some legitimate purposes consistent with copyright law. In attempting to find a satisfactor solution, this note develops and analyzes two models that future peer-to-peer networks could employ to attempt to avoid liability for copyright infringement. The note then analyzes the law, applies the two models to the relevant legal tests, and analyzes whether a peer-to-peer network operating on each model could avoid liability for copyright infringement. It concludes that modifying their technological structure may help peer-to-peer networks avoid liability, but that some risks remain.

In The Matter Of Exemption To Prohibition On Circumvention Of Copyright Protection Systems For Access Control Technologies: Hearing Before The U.S. Copyright Office, Library Of Cong., May 6, 2009 (Statement Of Roger V. Skalbeck, Geo. U. L. Library, On Behalf Of The American Association Of Law Libraries, The Medical Library Association And The Special Libraries Association), Roger Skalbeck

Testimony Before Congress

The American Association of Law Libraries, the Medical Library Association, and the Special Libraries Association submit the following comments on exemptions that should be granted pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 1201 (a)(1)(C).

Our request for an exemption is specifically aimed at literary and audiovisual works, usually commercially-produced, lawfully-acquired DVDs, when circumvention is used to make compilations of brief portions of the works for educational use by faculty members in a classroom setting.

Specifically, we request that the exemption granted to faculty in media and film studies programs after the 2006 rulemaking proceeding be broadened to faculty of law and the …

Toward A Public Trust Doctrine In Copyright Law, Haochen Sun

Cornell Law School Inter-University Graduate Student Conference Papers

As a full-fledged legal tool in property and environmental law, the public trust doctrine has played an important role in deterring inappropriate exploitation of natural resources and improving protection of the environment. In this article, I explore the possibility of introducing the public trust doctrine into copyright law and explain why we need to expand the use of the public trust doctrine from natural resources to knowledge and information as informational resources. By and large, I demonstrate that compared with the Copyright Clause and the First Amendment, the public trust doctrine, if introduced into copyright law, can create more effective …

Harmless Use: Gleaning From Fields Of Copyrighted Works, Wendy J. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

I will first provide a brief comment about what I think brings us all together. Second, I will talk about a particular project - something that has preoccupied me ever since I entered the field - namely, the distinction between what I will call, for sake of abbreviation, harmful use and harmless use.

The Ethical Visions Of Copyright Law, James Grimmelmann

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This symposium essay explores the imagined ethics of copyright: the ethical stories that people tell to justify, make sense of, and challenge copyright law. Such ethical visions are everywhere in intellectual property discourse, and legal scholarship ought to pay more attention to them. The essay focuses on a deontic vision of reciprocity in the author-audience relationship, a set of linked claims that authors and audiences ought to respect each other and express this respect through voluntary transactions.

Versions of this default ethical vision animate groups as seemingly antagonistic as the music industry, file sharers, free software advocates, and Creative Commons. …

Of Silos And Constellations: Comparing Notions Of Originality In Copyright Law, Daniel J. Gervais, Elizabeth F. Judge

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Originality is a central theme in the efforts to understand human evolution, thinking, innovation, and creativity. Artists strive to be "original," however the term is understood by each of them. It is also one of the major concepts in copyright law. This paper considers the evolution of the notion of originality since 2002 (when one of the coauthors published an article entitled Feist Goes Global: A Comparative Analysis Of The Notion Of Originality In Copyright Law) and continues the analysis, in particular whether the notion of "creative choices," which seems to have substantial normative heft in several jurisdictions, is optimal …

Inspiration Or Imitation: Copyright Protection For Stage Directions, Margit Livingston

College of Law Faculty

This article examines an important and timely issue involving the extent of copyright protection for stage directions. The recent lawsuits involving the regional productions of the Broadway hit "Urinetown" indicate that stage directors and their union, the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, are going to continue to press the courts and the Copyright Office for greater protection of what they perceive as their unique creative contribution to the theatrical arts. This article explores a myriad of issues related to copyright protection for stage directions and discusses copyrightable subject matter, copyright ownership, infringement, defenses to infringement, and other possible legal …

Hoisting Originality: A Response, Roberta Kwall

College of Law Faculty

This commentary originally appeared as part of the inaugural Virtual Workshop sponsored by the Intellectual Property Institute at the University of Richmond School of Law. The workshop featured a paper entitled Hoisting Originality (now published at Cardozo Law Review, Vol. 31, p. 451, 2009) by Professor Joseph Miller, along with two commentaries on the paper. My commentary examines and responds to Miller's argument that the standard for copyright law's originality requirement should be "hoisted" and thus analogized to that present in patent law.

Preserving And Ensuring Long-Term Access To Digitally Born Legal Information, Sarah Rhodes, Dana Neacsu

Law Faculty Publications

Written laws, records and legal materials form the very foundation of a democratic society. Lawmakers, legal scholars and everyday citizens alike need, and are entitled, to access the current and historic materials that comprise, explain, define, critique and contextualize their laws and legal institutions. The preservation of legal information in all formats is imperative. Thus far, the twenty-first century has witnessed unprecedented mass-scale acceptance and adoption of digital culture, which has resulted in an explosion in digital information. However, digitally born materials, especially those that are published directly and independently to the Web, are presently at an extremely high risk …

Fair Game: The Application Of Fair Use Doctrine To Machinima. , Christopher Reid

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Handwritten Notes On Art And The Intrinsic Worth Of A Human Life - 2009, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

At fifteen I found myself looking at a tree against the sky and being filled up with something bigger than I could contain. It was a sensation that demanded to be poured into something. The best label I could find for the emotion was "gratitude": Gratitude for the world I had not made, but had been given.

Lecture Draft Of Art And The Intrinsic Worth Of A Human Life - 2009, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

I've taken advantage of Tom's invitation to write a paper on religion and copyright that was "informal in format, in keeping with the informal nature of this gathering". What I have had to say on the Jewish law of gleaning is already on record; 1 what you'll read here are more like meditations. Thinking about the connections between art, spirituality and law has touched some very personal issues for me. Further, I know that everything I have to say is partial. I hope what I am about to give you will nevertheless raise some questions of interest.

Outline Of Art And The Intrinsic Worth Of A Human Life - 2009, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

We want to believe we have intrinsic importance. We want to believe our loved ones do too. That's one of the things that makes age and death so scary: at some point no one will know that green dress was the one grandma wore to your parents' wedding, all that matters to you will no longer matter to anyone. But we want to feel that living DID matter.

Notes On Art And The Intrinsic Worth Of A Human Life - 2009, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

Recall Tina Turner's famous song, where the singer pounds the audience repeatedly with the insistent apparent question: "what's love got to do with it!?" We know she's not really asking, "What's love got to do with it"; she's making a statement. What she wants to do is deny love's force, and free herself from its disappointment. The singer's seeming repudiation of love is an attempted eradication of something that is definitely still part of her.

Navigating The Safe Harbor Rule: The Need For A Dmca Compass, Tiffany N. Beaty

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

The internet is a medium for more than just email and web browsing. Today, many internet users utilize the internet to access and share music, movies, and other types of media. Copyright law has attempted to keep up with the dynamic nature of the internet; however, this Comment posits it has only been marginally successful. The author examines whether the Safe Harbor Rule of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) is sufficient in balancing the need to protect copyright owners against the need for Internet Service Providers to be protected from third-party user suits. In doing so, the author concludes …

The Transformation Of Originality In The Progressive-Era Debate Over Copyright In News, Robert Brauneis

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

In the 1991 case of Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., Inc., the Supreme Court held unanimously that only those aspects of works which exhibited a "modicum of creativity" could be protected by copyright, and hence that factual matter was not copyrightable. Feist confirmed and expanded on the Court's statements in the 1918 case of International News Service v. Associated Press that news was not copyrightable apart from its literary form. Yet for the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century, the notion that copyright incorporated an originality requirement which excluded factual matter from protection was unknown to Anglo-American …