Law Commons^™

Authorship And The Boundaries Of Copyright: Ideas, Expressions, And Functions In Yoga, Choreography, And Other Works, Christopher Buccafusco

Faculty Scholarship

This essay uses the Ninth Circuit’s opinion in Bikram’s Yoga College of India v. Evolation Yoga as an opportunity to analyze the nature of copyrightable authorship and the mechanisms that the law uses to screen out uncopyrightable content from otherwise copyrightable works. I argue that although the court likely reached the right result in Bikram, it did so in a confused and poorly supported manner. The court misunderstood the nature of the idea/expression distinction, the role of section 102(b), and the appropriate mechanism for screening out functional features of works. These aspects of the court’s opinion are widespread in copyright …

A Theory Of Copyright Authorship, Christopher Buccafusco

Faculty Scholarship

The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to grant rights to “Authors” for their “Writings.” Despite the centrality of these terms to copyright jurisprudence, neither the courts nor scholars have provided coherent theories about what makes a person an author or what makes a thing a writing. This article articulates and defends a theory of copyrightable authorship. It argues that authorship involves the intentional creation of mental effects in an audience. A writing, then, is any fixed medium capable of producing mental effects. According to this theory, copyright may attach to the original, fixed, and minimally creative form or manner …

The Moral Psychology Of Copyright Infringement, Christopher Buccafusco, David Fagundes

Faculty Scholarship

Numerous recent cases illustrate that copyright owners sue for infringement even when an unauthorized use of their work causes them no economic harm. This presents a puzzle from the perspective of copyright theory as well as a serious social problem, since infringement suits designed to remedy non-economic harms tend to stifle rather than encourage creative production. While much scholarship has critiqued copyright’s economic theory from the perspective of authors’ incentives to create, ours is the first to explore this issue from the perspective of owners’ motivations to sue for infringement. We turn to moral psychology, and in particular to moral …

Intellectual Property Law Hybridization, Clark D. Asay

University of Colorado Law Review

Traditionally, patent and copyright laws have been viewed as separate bodies of law with distinct utilitarian goals. Conventional wisdom holds that patent law aims to incentivize the production of inventive ideas, while copyright focuses on protecting the original expression of ideas, but not the underlying ideas themselves. This customary divide between copyright and patent laws finds some support in the distinction between "authors" and "inventors," as well as that between "writings" and "discoveries," in the U.S. Constitution's Intellectual Property Clause. And Congress, courts, and scholars have largely perpetuated the divide in separately enacting, interpreting, and analyzing copyright and patent laws …

Extending Copyright Protection To Combat Free-Riding By Digital News Aggregators And Online Search Engines, Nancy J. Whitmore

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Saving The Next Superman: An Alternative Approach To The Taxation Of Copyright Termination Rights, Benjamin Newell

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

Gray Works: How The Failure Of Copyright Law To Keep Pace With Technological Advancement In The Digital Age Has Created A Class Of Works Whose Protection Is Uncertain… And What Can Be Done About It, Kenneth R.L. Parker

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

Fighting Piracy With Censorship: The Operation In Our Sites Domain Seizures V. Free Speech, Michael Joseph Harrell

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

Diametrically Opposing Viewpoints: Why Polar Opposites Should Not Attract The Parody Label Under The Fair Use Exception To Copyright Infringement, Robyn M. Flegal

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

Why Copyright Law Lacks Taste And Scents, Leon Calleja

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

Authorship, Attribution, And Audience, Laura A. Heymann

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Copyright In Photographs In Canada Since 2012, Margaret Ann Wilkinson, Carolyn Soltau, Tierney Gb Deluzio

Law Publications

Photographs perform a unique function because they capture moments in time and that capture is contemporaneous with the subject of the photo: “[a] writer doesn’t necessarily have to be there to produce a story. A photographer, on the other hand, must be at the event when the event happens.”

In 2012, the Copyright Modernization Act changed the Copyright Act in terms of application to photographs. This column will first discuss how copyright now applies to photographs in Canada (who owns copyright and how long it lasts) and then describe the new users’ right now available in respect of commissioned photographs.

To Speak, Perchance To Have A Dream: The Malicious Author And Orator Estate As A Critique Of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act's Subversion Of The First Amendment In The Era Of Notice And Takedown, Michael Bradford Patterson

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

Unauthorized Digital Sampling In The Changing Music Landscape, Ryan Lloyd

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

The Enforcement Challenges For Tattoo Copyrights, Yolanda M. King

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

Copyright As Contract, Jeffrey L. Harrison

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

Copyright is essentially a contract between the author and the public with the government acting as the agent of the public. The consideration received by authors is defined by duration and breadth of exclusivity. The consideration for the public is the creation of a "work" that will be available on a limited basis for the life of the author plus 70 years and then available without limit after that. If there were no transaction costs at all, it would be possible to "pay" authors different amounts of exclusivity. Perhaps a greeting card would get one holiday season of exclusivity, if …

Copyright Update For The 2015 Nevada Bar Intellectual Property Law Conference, Marketa Trimble

Boyd Briefs / Road Scholars

Professor Marketa Trimble presented these materials to the Intellectual Property Law Section of the Nevada Bar on October 23, 2015. Over the course of her presentation, Prof. Trimble covered significant legal developments and statistical trends in copyright law from the 2014-2015 period, both in the United States and abroad.

Art Resale Royalty Options, Herbert I. Lazerow

Faculty Scholarship

Proposed federal law requires payments from the reseller of art to an artist when her work is resold. They can be conceptualized as a substitute for copyright royalties or for the profits of a joint venture between the artist and the collector. Application is analyzed by art type, especially multiples, place of sale, and nationality or residence of the seller, buyer, intermediary or artist, and by what constitutes a sale in a world of leases, exchanges, gifts, bequests, charitable donations, loans and casualty losses. If the base is gross sales price, is that the amount the seller receives, the amount …

Content-Based Copyright Denial, Ned Snow

Faculty Publications

No principle of First Amendment law is more firmly established than the principle that government may not restrict speech based on its content. It would seem to follow, then, that Congress may not withhold copyright protection for disfavored categories of content, such as violent video games or pornography. This Article argues otherwise. This Article is the first to recognize a distinction in the scope of coverage between the First Amendment and the Copyright Clause. It claims that speech protection from government censorship does not imply speech protection from private copying. Crucially, I argue that this distinction in the scope of …

Copyright Policy And The Problem Of Generalizing, Eva E. Subotnik

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Today we have heard a variety of concerns expressed by professional authors, artists and performers. But one of the toughest aspects of determining how to make the copyright system work better is generalizing about what is and is not working. In these brief remarks, I would like to identify three areas that demonstrate this difficulty.

At the outset, a disclaimer: I took the animating theme of this Symposium to be the improvement of the financial stake of individual authors in some kind of direct way. This mode of analysis should be distinguished from other approaches, equally valid, that would …

Freedom Of Expression And Morality-Based Impediments To The Enforcement Of Intellectual Property Rights, Marc J. Randazza

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of The Fair Use Doctrine On Text-Book Publishing And Copying; Part Ii, Roger Billings

Akron Law Review

Although not expressly authorized by law, it has, through custom, become regarded as a fair use for scholars to make handwritten copies of copyrighted materials needed for research. The basis for allowing hand-copying is that it is such a slow, tedious method of reproduction that scholars usually choose to purchase the complete work rather than to hand-copy excerpts from it. Consequently, hand-copying does not significantly reduce publishers' sales. However, this reasoning obviously cannot be applied to photocopying. As photocopying, a fast and convenient process, becomes cheaper than buying the book, when a professor desires to make a complete volume for …

The Effect Of The Fair Use Doctrine On Text-Book Publishing And Copying, Roger Billings

Akron Law Review

Perhaps nowhere will photocopying be more beneficial than in the field of education. The question is, what effect will it have on publishing? Senator Quentin Burdick stated the basic problem when he said, ". . . [Y]ou have someone who spends years in perfecting a textbook, and all of a sudden it is used free of charge. Where does he sell textbooks?" The problem of unauthorized photocopying of textbooks is considered one of the more difficult ones encountered in the area of fair use, an area itself regarded as one of the most troublesome in the whole law of copyright. …

The Protection Of Property Rights In Computer Software, Edward W. Rilee

Akron Law Review

During the last decade a number of attempts have been made by the courts in the realm of patent and copyright law to settle the issue of the protection of property rights in computer software. These traditional methods of protection, however, have not been able to assimilate this relatively new technological invention. Likewise, at the start of a new decade, little or no progress towards a comprehensive form of software protection can be detected. This paper will examine the problems associated with using federal patent or copyright law to provide computer software protection and discuss why state trade secret protection …

You Can't Always Get What You Want But Digital Sampling Can Get What You Need!, Ronald Mark Wells

Akron Law Review

This comment will examine copyright law, its role in the popular music industry, and its relationship with digital sampling. To lay the groundwork, Part I will examine the function of copyright law as it relates to musical compositions. Part II will then peruse the area of sound recordings. Finally, Part III will take a critical look at digital sound sampling and its legitimacy in relation to present copyright law

Film Artists Bushwhacked By The Coloroids: One-Hundredth Congress To The Rescue?, Nicholas Swyrydenko

Akron Law Review

The late, great film director, John Huston, in a videotaped speech prepared specially before his death for presentation at a Senate hearing on the issue of the colorization of black and white films, raged that he and other film artists, who had worked to produce such classic films as The Maltese Falcon, were being "bushwhacked by the coloroids," and he pleaded with Congress to step in to preserve that work.' This comment will trace the response of the One-Hundredth Congress to the pleas of John Huston and other film artists to preserve the original integrity of their films, and …

Copyright Infringement Of Musical Compositions: A Systematic Appproach, E. Scott Fruehwald

Akron Law Review

This article addresses the problems that courts face when dealing with copyright infringement of musical compositions. Infringement of music presents special problems for judges and juries because music is an intuitive art that is nonverbal and nonvisual. Consequently, traditional methods of establishing infringement are often unreliable when applied to music.

This paper will concentrate on the question of whether a composition that is similar to, but not the same as, another work infringes on the other work. I This inquiry is both qualitative and quantitative. First, one must establish that the first work employs material from the second work. Determining …

Eldred & The New Rationality, Brian L. Frye

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Historically, the rational basis test has been a constitutional rubber stamp. In Eldred v. Ashcroft and Golan v. Holder, the Supreme Court applied the rational basis test and respectively held that Congress could extend the copyright term of existing works and restore copyright protection of public domain works, despite evidence that Congress intended to benefit copyright owners at the expense of the public. But in Lawrence v. Texas and United States v. Windsor, the Supreme Court seems to have applied the rational basis test and held that state and federal laws were unconstitutional because they were motivated by …

Copyright Tensions In A Digital Age, John D. Shuff, Geoffrey T. Holtz

Akron Law Review

The rapid and exponential expansion of our ability to duplicate and disseminate information by digital means has rejuvenated inherent tensions in the law pertaining to copyright and has created some new ones. Not since the advent of radio in the early 1900s have such tensions come so squarely into focus. Even though courts are rarely, if ever, called upon to address certain of these tensions since the passage of the Copyright Act of 1976, they are being called upon to do so now

The Medium Is The Message: Copyright Law Confronts The Information Age In New York Times V. Tasini, Mark B. Radefeld

Akron Law Review

This Note analyzes the Supreme Court’s recent opinion in New York Times Co. v. Tasini and its implications for the future of copyright law and electronic publishing. Part II of this Note documents the background of copyright law, and details how the default provisions of §201(c) govern the publisher-author relationship. Part III of this Note introduces the parties and circumstances surrounding the Tasini case. Part III continues by outlining the District Court for the Southern District of New York, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and the Supreme Court decisions in this landmark case. Part IV of this …