Law Commons^™

Software's Copyright Anticommons, Clark D. Asay

Faculty Scholarship

Scholars have long assessed “anticommons” problems in creative and innovative environments. An anticommons develops when an asset has numerous rights holders, each of which has a right to prevent use of the asset, but none of which has a right to use the asset without authorization from the other rights holders. Hence, when any one of those rights holders uses its rights in ways that inhibit use of the common asset, an anticommons may result.

In the software world, scholars have long argued that anticommons problems arise, if at all, because of patent rights. Copyright, on the other hand, has …

The Commercial Appropriation Of Frame: A Cultural Analysis Of Right Of Publicity And Passing Off, Peter Jaszi

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Over several centuries, the rhetoric of 'gap filling' has often been invoked to naturalise expansions of intellectual property ("IP") rights-copyright term extension, the patenting of life forms, trademark disparagement, and so forth. The ready pragmatism of the phrase has definite audience appeal, making big changes sound like straightforward responses to external conditions-rather than choices about how to draw the line between private ownership and public discourse. We know, however, that once filled, 'gaps' tend to stay filled. Retrospective debates about the wisdom of such decisions tend to be (both literally and figuratively) of merely academic interest. So what is most …

Finding A Fair Balance For The Right Of Publicity And First Amendment Protections, Christine Digregorio

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ownership Of Intellectual Property In The Library Complex, Patrick Roughen

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

In order to broadly explore intellectual property in the context of the library complex, this research examines the patents produced by companies that provide goods and services to libraries, as well as patents associated with international libraries. This paper also surveys the trademarks and copyrights held by Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, located in Charlotte, North Carolina. This research suggests ways in which development of intellectual property by U.S. libraries might evolve in the future, with evidence obtained primarily through the searching of online databases.

Fashion's Function In Intellectual Property Law, Christopher Buccafusco, Jeanne C. Fromer

Faculty Scholarship

Clothing designs can be beautiful. But they are also functional. Fashion’s dual nature sits uneasily in intellectual property law, and its treatment by copyright, trademark, and design patent laws has often been perplexing. Much of this difficulty arises from an unclear under-standing of the nature of functionality in fashion design. This Article proposes a robust account of fashion’s function. It argues that aspects of garment designs are functional not only when they affect the physical or technological performance of a garment but also when they affect the perception of the wearer’s body. Generally, clothes are not designed or chosen simply …

Functionality Screens, Christopher Buccafusco, Mark A. Lemley

Faculty Scholarship

Among intellectual property (IP) doctrines, only utility patents should protect function. Utility patents offer strong rights that place constraints on competition, but they only arise when inventors can demonstrate substantial novelty after a costly examination. Copyrights, trademarks, and design patents are much easier to obtain than utility patents, and they often last much longer. Accordingly, to prevent claimants from obtaining “backdoor patents,” the other IP doctrines must screen out functionality. As yet, however, courts and scholars have paid little systematic attention to the ways in which these functionality screens operate across and within IP law.

We have four tasks in …

Forgetting Functionality, Christopher Buccafusco, Jeanne C. Fromer

Faculty Scholarship

In Star Athletica, LLC v. Varsity Brands, Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court had an opportunity to clarify copyright law’s treatment of product designs that incorporate functionality. Its opinion failed to do so in a host of different ways. In this comment (as part of the symposium From Shovels to Jerseys: A Guide to Apply Star Athletica v. Varsity Brands), we address just one of the opinion’s shortcomings: its failure to adequately define and distinguish between a design’s functional and expressive features. Not only does the Court’s neglect produce uncertainty for creators, litigants, and judges, the opinion makes it substantially easier …

Open Source Tactics: Bargaining Power For Strategic Litigation, James Skelley

Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Design Choice In Intellectual Property And Antitrust Law, Stacey Dogan

Faculty Scholarship

When is it appropriate for courts to second-guess decisions of private actors in shaping their business models, designing their networks, and configuring the (otherwise non-infringing) products that they offer to their customers? This theme appears periodically but persistently in intellectual property and antitrust, especially in disputes involving networks and technology. In both contexts, courts routinely invoke what I call a “non-interference principle” — the presumption that market forces ordinarily bring the best outcomes for consumers, and that courts and regulators should not meddle in the process. This non-interference principle means, for example, that intermediaries need not design their networks to …

Justice Between Authors, Dawn C. Nunziato

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

Traditionally, authors' copyright rights have been limited in order to promote the progress of science and the useful arts. However, authors today are increasingly employing additional protective measures that arguably are not subject to such limitations. Even if such extra-copyright measures are not limited like copyright protections, several principles underlying the copyright regime support imposing such limits on authors' rights. In this Article, based upon John Rawls's theory of justice as fairness, I develop a theory of justice between generations of authors. This theory requires that the rights of each generation of authors be limited for the benefit of subsequent …

See Ya Later, Gator: Assessing Whether Placing Pop-Up Advertisements On Another Company's Website Violates Trademark Law, Kirsten M. Beystehner

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

American Corporate Copyright: A Brilliant, Uncoordinated Plan, Paul J. Heald

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

Falling On Deaf Ears: Is The "Fail-Safe" Triennial Exemption Provision In The Digital Millennium Copyright Act Effective In Protecting Fair Use?, Woodrow Neal Hartzog

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

This Article examines whether the "fail-safe" triennial exemption provision of the DMCA is effective for its intended purpose: to serve as a countermeasure to the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions by protecting the ability of the public to engage in non-infringing uses of copyrighted works.

Ultimately, this Article concludes that there are too many faults in both the structure and the execution of the rule-making provision to meaningfully counteract the adverse effects of the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. Specifically, the rule-making procedure explicitly prohibits exemptions to a class based on the use of the work. This amounts to a rejection of …

Martha Graham, Professor Miller And The "Work For Hire" Doctrine: Undoing The Judicial Bind Created By The Legislature, Nancy S. Kim

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

The current work for hire doctrine, as embodied by 17 U.S.C. Sections 101 and 201 and interpreted by the judiciary, provides a default rule of copyright ownership in favor of employers where a work is created by an employee in the scope of employment. In the absence of a written agreement, a finding that an engagement is a work for hire under the statute automatically results in all ownership being vested in the employer. This result often contradicts business norms and the understanding of one or both of the parties. In this Article, the author advocates abolishing the all-or-nothing concept …

The Price Of Social Norms: Towards A Liability Regime For File-Sharing, Daniel J. Gervais

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

The paper starts by asking whether P2P file-sharing of music can be stopped. Based on a discussion of (a) the interaction among law (regulation), technology and the market and (b) relevant social norms, the paper takes the view that it may not be possible to stop file-sharing. The paper then turns to an analysis of the economics and structure of a viable licensing model that could be implemented now without legislative or technological changes. The paper argues that P2P licensing could be good business. The paper ends with a brief look at (a) whether the licensing model could be exported …

Copyright: Walking The Tightrope, Bethany Kenyon, Elizabeth Dyer

Library Services Faculty Posters

Librarians often struggle with copyright questions from patrons. After winning a copyright consultation with copyright specialist Barbara Ingrassia during the 2015 North Atlantic Health Sciences Libraries (NAHSL) Scholarship Raffle, UNE librarians decided it was high time to conquer our fears and create a tool to help with the balancing act that is Fair Use. This poster describes the development and promotion of a Fair Use Checklist.

Aesthetic Nondiscrimination & Fair Use, Brian L. Frye

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

While courts do not consider the aesthetic value of an element of a work in determining whether it is protected by copyright, they do consider the aesthetic value of the use of a copyrighted element of a work in determining whether that use is a fair use. This asymmetry improperly and inefficiently discriminates in favor of copyright protection and against fair use. Moreover, the fair use “transformativeness” inquiry discriminates against marginalized authors, because courts are less likely to appreciate the aesthetic value of their uses of copyrighted works.

Courts should apply the aesthetic nondiscrimination principle to both copyright and fair …

Tribute: Elizabeth Chitwood, Jessica L. Haushalter

Vanderbilt Law Review

Elizabeth "Beth" Chitwood was one of the newest members of the Vanderbilt Law Review. Our community mourns her unexpected loss and is grateful for the time we were able to share with her. The following Tribute briefly highlights Beth's contributions to the Vanderbilt Law community and the Vanderbilt Law Review.

The Copy Process, Joseph P. Fishman

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

There’s more than one way to copy. The process of copying can be laborious or easy, expensive or cheap, educative or unenriching. But the two intellectual property regimes that make copying an element of liability, copyright and trade secrecy, approach these distinctions differently. Copyright conflates them. Infringement doctrine considers all copying processes equally suspect, asking only whether the resulting product is substantially similar to the protected work. By contrast, trade secrecy asks not only whether but also how the defendant copied. It limits liability to those who appropriate information through means that the law deems improper.

This Article argues that …

The Termination Of A License Agreement On The Use Of A Repertoire By A Collective Rights Management Organization That Abuses Its Dominant Position With Respect To Neighbouring Rights. A Case Comment To A Judgement Of The Court Of Appeals In Cracow Of 25 June 2015, I Aca 466/15, Marcin Mioduszewski

internetowy Kwartalnik Antymonopolowy i Regulacyjny (internet Quarterly on Antitrust and Regulation)

Collective rights management organizations (which manage copyright as well as related/neighboring rights) operating without an approved tables of copyright royalties, are entitled to license, or to terminate an existing license agreement, only for an important reasons. The dispute over a mere royalty rate, without the presence of any other disputable issue, cannot be considered as an important reason under Article 106(2) of the Act on Copyright and Related Rights, justifying the termination of a license agreement for the repertoire of such organization, or a refusal to enter into such contract at all. The shape of the collective management system in …

Catwalk Copycats: Why Congress Should Adopt A Modified Version Of The Design Piracy Prohibition Act, Laura C. Marshall

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

Statutory Heirs Apparent?: Reclaiming Copyright In The Age Of Author-Controlled, Author-Benefiting Transfers, Tonya M. Evans

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Marketa Trimble Becomes The Inaugural Samuel S. Lionel Professor Of Intellectual Property Law, Marketa Trimble

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A La Recherche Du “Sens” Perdu: Copyrightable Creativity Deconstructed, Thomas M. Byron

Pace Law Review

The primary goal of this article is to show how the concept of “creativity” as defined and applied by courts in copyright cases fails to map any reasonable concept of creativity in certain critical respects. Accordingly, the first charge undertaken here is a deconstructive one—to show the lack of meaningful overlap between the legal definition of creativity and the “actual” meanings of that same term. To undertake this comparison, Part II of this Article focuses on perhaps the more easily determined of these two definitions of the term—“creativity” as defined by courts. Rather than giving an unduly broad berth …

Branded: Trademark Tattoos, Slave Owner Brands, And The Right To Have "Free" Skin, Shontavia Johnson

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Though existing for several millennia in various cultures, body modification through tattooing is becoming more popular in the United States. Twenty percent of Americans have at least one tattoo, and among Millennials this number grows to almost forty percent. As the popularity of tattoos has increased in recent years, so too have questions revolving around concepts of intellectual property and the plausible limitations of any rights stemming therefrom. This Article addresses the implications, for both the tattooist and the tattooed, of using trademarked designations as tattoos. Neither the courts nor Congress have definitively answered the question of how traditional trademark …

Jay-Z Has 99 Problems But A Sample Ain’T One, Rebecca Knight

The University of Cincinnati Intellectual Property and Computer Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Copyrightability Of Music Compilations And Playlists: Original And Creative Works Of Authorship?, Marc A. Fritzsche

Pace Intellectual Property, Sports & Entertainment Law Forum

Music compilations and playlists have a common nucleus of an act of gathering songs and ordering them. Their selection and arrangement can be decisive of the success and therefore can be valuable. And here is where the legal issues about their ownership arise: Are music compilations and playlists protectable under the regime of Copyright Law? This article will discuss the legal and practical issues connected with that question. Thereby, it will consider the United States, Europe in general and also the United Kingdom and Germany in particular. The individual legal systems and statutes will be analyzed, as well as the …

Is Copyright Evolving Or Mutating? What American Broadcasting Cos. V. Aereo, Inc. Says About U.S. Copyright Law In The Twenty-First Century, Allison Davenport

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

In this article, I will look in-depth at the case of American Broadcasting Cos. v. Aereo, Inc. (Aereo). Aereo centers on an alleged infringement of American Broadcasting Company's (ABC)'s public performance right that was achieved through a complicated technological process meant to circumvent the law. In its opinion, the Supreme Court of the United States tries to stretch the language of the Copyright Act to apply to new technology by analogizing it with more familiar processes, while the dissent calls for reform to come from Congress, not the courts. Before my discussion of the Aereo decision, I will discuss the …

Fair Use’S Unfinished Business, Rebecca Tushnet

Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Copyright’S Other Functions, Margaret Chon

Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property

This response to a keynote speech by Judge Margaret McKeown explores some dimensions of copyright in addition to its dominant function as a set of market-facilitating exclusive rights. The recent possible trend towards protecting privacy and other non-commercial concerns via copyright law is not necessarily inconsistent with its historical usages, does not necessarily threaten freedom of expression and may further important privacy policies. The balance of these competing policies is shifting, especially in an environment of proliferating digital content where cyber civil rights may need further development in response to cyberbullying. It examines the specific case of non-consensual pornography as …