Law Commons^™

Visualizing Copyright Law: Lessons From Conceptual Artists, Sandra M. Aistars

Akron Law Review

Copyright law does not require an object to be “art” to be protectable, except in one respect: copyright protection does not extend to useful articles. As a result, courts engage in analysis strikingly similar to that of conceptual artists visualizing art. Copyright law has an uneasy relationship with conceptual art because the Copyright Act also requires works to be original and fixed in a tangible medium. Requirements that have led some to conclude that the kind of art where “the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work” should not be protectable by copyright.

This article examines …

A Global Perspective On Digital Sampling, Loren E. Mulraine

Akron Law Review

The state of the law in the United States is complicated by the fact that the de minimis doctrine is, and has been a muddled doctrine. Copyright law and patent law allow future authors and inventors to build upon the works of previous rights holders. In the patent world, the new work must be a non-obvious improvement on the original patent. In copyright, the key is that the secondary user cannot take a substantial portion of the prior author’s copyrightable expression. There is no infringement without substantial similarity. By definition, a de minimis taking is the polar opposite of substantial …

Second Level Agreements, Yafit Lev-Aretz

Akron Law Review

This Article analyzes in-depth a significant practice that has not been recognized in legal scholarship. Their unique structure and the way in which Second Level Agreements have developed within the relatively short time of their existence have important consequences for the various players in the copyright market...The Article also offers a normative assessment of the benefits and shortcomings of the Second Level Agreements practice...The Article then carefully looks at the future of Second Level Agreements while reviewing four potential catalysts—the shift towards premium content, the Viacom v. Google ruling, the move towards disintermediation, and the rise of noncommercial licensing system. …