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Articles 1 - 9 of 9
Full-Text Articles in Law
Propertizing Fair Use, Abraham Bell, Gideon Parchomovsky
Propertizing Fair Use, Abraham Bell, Gideon Parchomovsky
All Faculty Scholarship
In its current form, fair use doctrine provides a personal defense that applies narrowly to the specific use by the specific user. The landmark case of Google v. Oracle, currently pending before the Supreme Court, illustrates why this is problematic. Even if the Court were to rule that Google’s use of Oracle’s Java API’s was fair, the ruling would not protect the numerous parties that developed Java applications for the Android operating system; it would only shelter Google and Google’s particular use. This is not an isolated problem; the per use/per user rule cuts across fair uses of copyrighted …
Defense Against The Dark Arts Of Copyright Trolling, Matthew Sag, Jake Haskell
Defense Against The Dark Arts Of Copyright Trolling, Matthew Sag, Jake Haskell
Faculty Articles
In this Article, we offer both a legal and a pragmatic framework for defending against copyright trolls. Lawsuits alleging online copyright infringement by John Doe defendants have accounted for roughly half of all copyright cases filed in the United States over the past three years. In the typical case, the plaintiff’s claims of infringement rely on a poorly substantiated form pleading and are targeted indiscriminately at noninfringers as well as infringers. This practice is a subset of the broader problem of opportunistic litigation, but it persists due to certain unique features of copyright law and the technical complexity of Internet …
Discouraging Frivolous Copyright Infringement Claims: Fee Shifting Under Rule 11 Or 28 U.S.C. § 1927 As An Alternative To Awarding Attorney's Fees Under Section 505 Of The Copyright Act, David E. Shipley
Scholarly Works
The United States Supreme Court’s 2016 decision in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons resolved a disagreement over when it is appropriate to award attorney’s fees to a prevailing defendant under section 505 of the Copyright Act, and ended a perceived venue advantage for losing plaintiffs in some jurisdictions. The Court ruled unanimously that courts are correct to give substantial weight to the question of whether the losing side had a reasonable case to fight, but that the objective reasonableness of that side’s position does not give rise to a presumption against fee shifting. It made clear that other factors …
Rohauer Revisited: "Rear Window," Copyright Reversions, Renewals, Terminations, Derivative Works And Fair Use , Richard Colby
Rohauer Revisited: "Rear Window," Copyright Reversions, Renewals, Terminations, Derivative Works And Fair Use , Richard Colby
Pepperdine Law Review
No abstract provided.
Musical Copyright Infringement: The Replacement Of Arnstein V. Porter - A More Comprehensive Use Of Expert Testimony And The Implementation Of An "Actual Audience" Test , Michelle V. Francis
Musical Copyright Infringement: The Replacement Of Arnstein V. Porter - A More Comprehensive Use Of Expert Testimony And The Implementation Of An "Actual Audience" Test , Michelle V. Francis
Pepperdine Law Review
No abstract provided.
Copyright And The Vagueness Doctrine, Bradley E. Abruzzi
Copyright And The Vagueness Doctrine, Bradley E. Abruzzi
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The Constitution's void-for-vagueness doctrine is itself vaguely stated. The doctrine does little to describe at what point vague laws-other than those that are entirely standardless-become unconstitutionally vague. Rather than explore this territory, the Supreme Court has identified three collateral factors that affect its inclination to invalidate a law for vagueness: (1) whether the law burdens the exercise of constitutional rights, (2) whether the law is punitive in nature, and (3) whether the law overlays a defendant-protective scienter requirement. Measured against these factors, copyright law does not meet the vagueness doctrine's minimum requirement of fair notice to the public. Copyright, by …
Antibiotic Resistance, Jessica D. Litman
Antibiotic Resistance, Jessica D. Litman
Articles
Ten years ago, when I wrote War Stories,' copyright lawyers were fighting over the question whether unlicensed personal, noncommercial copying, performance or display would be deemed copyright infringement. I described three strategies that lawyers for book publishers, record labels, and movie studios had deployed to try to assure that the question was answered the way they wanted it to be. First, copyright owners were labeling all unlicensed uses as "piracy" on the ground that any unlicensed use might undermine copyright owners' control. That epithet helped to obscure the difference between unlicensed uses that invaded defined statutory exclusive rights and other …
Money For Nothing And Music For Free? Why The Riaa Should Continue To Sue Illegal File-Sharers, William Henslee
Money For Nothing And Music For Free? Why The Riaa Should Continue To Sue Illegal File-Sharers, William Henslee
Journal Publications
The Recording Industry Association of America ("RIAA") has sued over 35,000 people for illegal file-sharing music, or uploading and downloading music. The RIAA has sued anyone under its "making available" theory, or anyone who offers to distribute copyrighted music without the owner's consent. However, the United States Circuit Courts of Appeals are split on whether copyright infringement occurs when a file is "made available" or when there is actual dissemination of a file. Due to this split, the RIAA has negotiated deals with internet service providers to penalize individuals who illegally share files. This article analyzes a recent decision, Capitol …
The Half-Fairness Of Google's Plan To Make The World's Collection Of Books Searchable, Steven Hetcher
The Half-Fairness Of Google's Plan To Make The World's Collection Of Books Searchable, Steven Hetcher
Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review
Google's major new initiative is to undertake the task of digitizing the world's collection of books so as to make them searchable. The very idea is audacious, but what is more so is that Google plans to copy without first seeking the permission of the owners of these works. Google Print would make available what is, by conventional measures at least, the highest grade of information--books produced by millions of the world's leading scholars. This is in stark contrast to the inconsistent quality spectrum one encounters through other online sources such as peer-to-peer networks and blogs, where there currently exists …