Law Commons^™

Copyright's Communications Policy, Tim Wu

Faculty Scholarship

There is something for everyone to dislike about early twenty-first century copyright. Owners of content say that newer and better technologies have made it too easy to be a pirate. Easy copying, they say, threatens the basic incentive to create new works; new rights and remedies are needed to restore the balance. Academic critics instead complain that a growing copyright gives content owners dangerous levels of control over expressive works. In one version of this argument, this growth threatens the creativity and progress that copyright is supposed to foster; in another, it represents an "enclosure movement" that threatens basic freedoms …

Bouchat V. Baltimore Ravens: The Fourth Circuit Adopts The Strinkingly Similar Doctrine To Infer Proof Of Access, Douglas R. Arntsen

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Balancing Act Of Copyright: The Copyright Laws Of Australia And The United States In The Digital Era, Dilan J. Thampapillai

Cornell Law School J.D. Student Research Papers

The digital era has posed a unique challenge to copyright law. The emergence of the information technology revolution and the internet has increased the ability and the willingness of copyright users to copy and distribute protected material. In response to this phenomenon copyright owners have pushed for stronger laws to protect their content from infringement. Their success has prompted a strong counter reaction from copyright users and consumer groups.

This paper seeks to examine how changes to Australian and US copyright law have resulted in an imbalance between owners and users and whether the traditional safeguards of fair dealing and …

Copyrighting Facts, Michael S. Green

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Introduction: Rights Of Attribution, Section 43(A) Of The Lanham Act, And The Copyright Public Domain, Tyler T. Ochoa

Faculty Publications

In Dastar Corporation v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether the former owner of the copyright in a "work made for hire" has a federal right of attribution that continues to exist even after the formerly copyrighted work has entered the public domain.

Fifteen intellectual property law professors filed anamicus brief in the case in support of the Petitioner. The brief, which is reprinted following this introduction, attempts to place the Dastar case in its historical context, as merely the latest effort on the part of former copyright owners to use trademark and unfair …

Spiritual But Not Intellectual? The Protection Of Sacred Intangible Traditional Knowledge, Daniel J. Gervais

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The use of sacred aboriginal art is nothing new. It is fairly common to see dream catchers hanging from rear view mirrors in cars. In Australia, sacred aboriginal designs are often found on tea towels, rugs and restaurant placemats. In the United States, people routinely Commercialize Navajo rugs containing both sacred and profane designs with no connection to the Navajo nation. Millions of dollars of Indian crafts imported from Asia are sold in the United States each year. Another example is the taking of sacred Ami chants by the German rock group Enigma for its song Return to Innocence. Can …

Fragmented Copyright, Fragmented Management: Proposals To Defrag Copyright Management, Daniel J. Gervais, Alana Maurushat

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The collective management of copyright in Canada was conceived as a solution to alleviate the problem of inefficiency of individual rights management. Creators could not license, collect and enforce copyright efficiently on an individual basis. Requiring users to obtain permission from individual copyright holders for the use of a work was equally inefficient. Collectives, therefore, emerged to facilitate the clearance of rights between creators and users. Even with the facilitation of collectives in the process, clearing rights remains an inherently difficult and convoluted process. This is especially so in the age of the Internet where clearing rights for multimedia products …

Eugene Volokh Replies, Eugene Volokh

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

I Didn't Take The Road Less Traveled, And What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been, Brian A. Glassman

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

A Primer On U.S. Intellectual Property Rights Applicable To Music Information Retrieval Systems, Michael Carroll

PIJIP Faculty Scholarship

Digital technology has had a significant impact on the ways in which music information can be stored, transmitted, and used. Within the information sciences, music information retrieval has become an increasingly important and complex field. This brief article is addressed primarily to those involved in the design and implementation of systems for storing and retrieving digital files containing musical notation, recorded music, and relevant metadata – hereinafter referred to as a Music Information Retrieval System (“MIRS”). In particular, this group includes information specialists, software engineers, and the attorneys who advise them. Although peer-to-peer computer applications, such as Napster’s MusicShare or …

The Second Enclosure Movement And The Construction Of The Public Domain, James Boyle

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

A Contractually Reconstructed Research Commons For Scientific Data In A Highly Protectionist Intellectual Property Environment, J. H. Reichman, Paul F. Uhlir

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

Law Of The Internet In Argentina., Guillermo Cabanellas

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

Mapping The Digital Public Domain: Threats And Opportunities, Pamela Samuelson

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

Through The Looking Glass: Alice And The Constitutional Foundations Of The Public Domain , Yochai Benkler

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

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

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

Two Relationships To A Cultural Public Domain

Law and Contemporary Problems

It's been well over ten years since Negativland was sued by Island Records for supposed copyright infringement, trademark infringement, defamation of character and consumer fraud contained in our 1991 U2 single. In the big wide world of the ownership of ideas, a lot has changed since then-the advent of the Internet and its worldwide empowerment of individuals through personalized interconnection, the effects of economic globalization and how it bypasses both the ideologies of local governments and the rule of their national laws, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act with which intellectual property owners are attempting to survive as all these …

What's Wrong With Eldred? An Essay On Copyright Jurisprudence, L. Ray Patterson

Scholarly Works

With few exceptions, the U.S. Supreme Court has rendered wise copyright decisions consistent with the Copyright Clause. Unfortunately, Eldred v. Ashcroft adds to the exceptions. The difference is that the former are positive law, and the latter natural law, decisions.

Foreword: The Opposite Of Property?, James Boyle

Law and Contemporary Problems

In November of 2001, Duke University School of Law held a conference on the public domain; the "outside" of the intellectual property system, the material that is free for all to use and to build upon.1 So far as we could tell, this was the first conference on the subject, which is surprising when one realizes the central role of the public domain in our traditions of speech, innovation and culture. In many ways, this imbalance-the hundreds of conferences, centers and initiatives that have intellectual property as their focus, and the comparative dearth of attention on the public domain-provided the …

Nine-Tenths Of The Law: The English Copyright Debates And The Rhetoric Of The Public Domain , Mark Rose

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

Romans, Roads, And Romantic Creators: Traditions Of Public Property In The Information Age , Carol M. Rose

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

Ideas, Artifacts, And Facilities: Information As A Common-Pool Resource, Charlotte Hess, Elinor Ostrom

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

“Fairest Of Them All” And Other Fairy Tales Of Fair Use, David Nimmer

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

Bayh-Dole Reform And The Progress Of Biomedicine, Arti K. Rai, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

Reimagining The Public Domain, David Lange

Law and Contemporary Problems

In a paper included among this collection of works from the Duke Law School’s Conference on the Public Domain, James Boyle kindly credits an early essay of mine, Recognizing the Public Domain, with having contributed initially to the contemporary study of the subject. Boyle quotes a passage from that essay in which I suggested that "recognition of new intellectual property interests should be offset today by equally deliberate recognition of individual rights in the public domain . . . . Each [intellectual property] right ought to be marked off clearly against the public domain."

Panel Ii: Mickey Mice? Potential Ramifications Of Eldred V. Ashcroft, David O. Carson, Eben Moglen, Wendy Seltzer, Charles Sims

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Functions Of Transaction Costs: Rethinking Transaction Cost Minimization In A World Of Friction, David M. Driesen, Shubha Ghosh

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

This article critically examines the goal of minimizing transaction costs, including the costs of legal decision-making. This goal permeates the law and economics literature and has profoundly influenced public policy. While most transaction cost scholarship has focused upon private law, this influence has been especially pervasive in public law, where it has contributed to a variety of legal changes aimed at reducing public transaction costs, often through privatization.

We argue that transaction costs perform useful functions. They frequently enable those engaging in transactions to obtain information needed to correct for information asymmetries or inadequate information. They facilitate efficient transactions, allow …

Perfecting Patent Prizes, Michael Abramowicz

Vanderbilt Law Review

When anthrax attacks recently led to a run on the patented antibiotic drug Cipro, politicians and commentators suggested that the government consider purchasing generic alternatives. Some used the occasion to illustrate what they perceived as a broader problem with patent protection: that pharmaceutical companies seeking profits would not allow the sick to obtain access to needed medications. The argument repeated a familiar refrain in the intellectual property debate, as a long history of articles has inquired whether society would be better off with no patent or copyright law at all. Even recently, commentators have questioned the broad scope of intellectual …

Draft Of Rendering Copyright Into Caesar - 2003, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

This article makes a simple suggestion. Copyright rules by money, so let it rule the money-bound. Let a different set of rules evolve for more complex uses, particularly when the users have a personal relationship with the utilized text. Copyright. When new artists make transformative use of existing works in settings not characterized by pre-use commercial negotiations, copyright should avoid imposing a distorting burden.

The Role Of Intellectual Property Rights In Negotiating And Planning A Research Joint Venture, Kurt M. Saunders

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

This Article considers the role of intellectual property rights in research joint ventures. Professor Saunders begins by outlining the various advantages of pursuing research in a joint venture business form, including the sharing of expertise and investment costs. The author identifies and elucidates the intellectual property issues, as well as related licensing and antitrust implications, that arise in the joint venture context. Most notably, Saunders articulates the different intellectual property concerns that surface at each separate stage-from negotiation and planning, to termination of the collaboration.