Law Commons^™

A State Law Approach To Preserving Fair Use In Academic Libraries, David R. Hansen

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

Every year academic libraries spend millions of dollars to provide their users access to copyrighted works. Much of that money goes not toward purchasing physical copies of books or journals, but toward licensing electronic content from publishers. In those electronic license agreements, the default rules for how users interact with copyrighted content is often altered, and academic library users are deprived of basic rights — especially rights such as fair use — which are granted under federal copyright law. The literature is flush with discussion of the misuse of private contracts to alter the rights granted by Congress in copyright’s …

Using Public Disclosure As The Vesting Point For Moral Rights Under The Visual Artists Rights Act, Elizabeth M. Bock

Michigan Law Review

In 2010, the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit confronted the novel question of when moral rights protections vest under the Visual Artists Rights Act. In Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art Foundation, Inc. v. Bichel, the First Circuit determined that the protections of the Visual Artists Rights Act begin when a work is "created" under the Copyright Act. This Note argues that this decision harms moral rights conceptually and is likely to result in unpredictable and inconsistent decisions. This Note proposes instead that these statutory protections should vest when an artist determines that his work is complete and presents …

Toward A Trips Truce, Patricia L. Judd

Michigan Journal of International Law

The World Trade Organization's (WTO's) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS or Agreement), now over fifteen years old, regulates a marketplace characterized by extraordinary dynamism, influenced by the constant forces of globalization and technological evolution. Attempts to regulate this market raise natural, persistent questions concerning the Agreement's ability to serve its respective constituencies and adapt to change. The Agreement operates in the midst of an age-old dynamic pitting developing and developed countries against one another, especially when it comes to domestic enforcement against piracy and counterfeiting-a dynamic in which TRIPS has been criticized as a one-sided instrument. …

Protection For Informational Works After Feist Publications, Inc. V. Rural Telephone Service Co., Miriam Bitton

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Moral Rights And Supernatural Fiction: Authorial Dignity And The New Moral Rights Agendas, Jacqueline D. Lipton Ph.D.

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

In recent years, several scholars have revisited the question of moral rights protections for creators of copyright works in the United States. Their scholarship has focused on defining a moral rights agenda that comports with American constitutional values, as well as being practically suited to current copyright business practices. Much of this scholarship has prioritized a right of attribution over other moral rights, such as the right of integrity. This Article evaluates some of these recent moral rights models in light of a sample of comments made by American supernatural fiction authors about their works. The Author questions whether the …

Technical Knockout: How Mixed Martial Arts Will Change Copyright Enforcement On The Web, Keith Black

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Innovative Copyright, Greg Lastowka

Michigan Law Review

For over a decade, Michael Carrier has been exploring the intersection of antitrust and intellectual property ("IP") law, contributing many articles that offer new solutions and approaches to the vexing problems confronting the law of innovation. Carrier's academic writing is situated in a voluminous scholarly discourse about the appropriate rules and goals of the laws of copyright, patent, and antitrust. While Carrier easily could have written an "insider" tome for specialists in this area, his new book, Innovation for the 21st Century, is targeted at a broader audience. Carrier's book is directed at legislators, jurists, and opinion makers-as well as …

Databases And Dynamism, Michal Shur-Ofry

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Databases are generally perceived in legal scholarship as static warehouses, storing up valuable facts and information. Accordingly, scholarship on copyright protection of databases typically concentrates on the social need to access their content. This Article seeks to shift the focus of the debate, arguing that the copyrightdatabases debate is not merely a static "access to information" story. Instead, it is a dynamic story of relations, hierarchies, and interactions between pieces of information, determined by database creators. It is also a story of patterns, categories, selections, and taxonomies that are often invisible to the naked eye, but that influence our perceptions …

Making Virtual Copyright Work, Matthew R. Farley

Golden Gate University Law Review

This Article proposes measures that attempt to strike the balance between creation and access. The virtual-world community is not likely to persevere with the little copyright protection it currently enjoys. Creativity will dwindle and the rich, energetic settings that make virtual worlds so attractive to businesses and entertainers will follow suit. At the same time, because much of the creativity in virtual worlds is derivative in nature, virtual creators are also unlikely to benefit from strong copyright protections. Therefore, current interpretation of copyright law must be revisited and revised before applying it to virtual worlds. Part I details virtual worlds …

The Endowment Effect In Ip Transactions: The Case Against Debiasing, Ofer Tur-Sinai

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

This Article contains a critical discussion of recent studies by Christopher Buccafusco and Christopher Sprigman concerning the role of the endowment effect in intellectual property transactions. According to the thesis presented in these studies, the existence of an endowment effect in the markets for IP goods causes inefficiencies. In order to counteract such inefficiencies, the authors argue, IP rights must be weakened in various ways, including shifting toward liability rules, adding formalities in copyright law, and expanding the fair use doctrine. The thesis as presented is groundbreaking and would have broad implications. This Article, however, points out several shortcomings of …

Hatch-Waxmanizing Copyright, Michal Shur-Ofry

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

This Essay presents a novel proposal for counter balancing "copyright overspills." In the background of the discussion is the common reality of users succumbing to rights holders' attempts to license uses which are most likely fair uses or completely free of copyright protection. These practices have attracted considerable attention in recent literature. Most scholarly proposals in this context emphasize the need to clarify the contours of the fair use doctrine and to remove doctrinal ambiguities. Yet these initiatives are probably insufficient to overcome users' risk aversion in copyright markets due to an inherent structural imbalance within copyright law. While the …

Paper Tigers: Rethinking The Relationship Between Copyright And Scholarly Publishing, Alissa Centivany

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Discontent is growing in academia over the practices of the proprietary scholarly publishing industry. Scholars and universities criticize the expensive subscription fees, restrictive access policies, and copyright assignment requirements of many journals. These practices seem fundamentally unfair given that the industries' two main inputs-articles and peer-review-are provided to it free of charge. Furthermore, while many publishers continue to enjoy substantial profit margins, many elite university libraries have been forced to triage their collections, choosing between purchasing monographs or subscribing to journals, or in some cases, doing away with "non-essential" materials altogether. The situation is even more dire for non-elite schools, …

The Legality Of Free And Open Source Software Licenses: The Case Of Jacobsen V. Katzer, Brian Fitzgerald, Rami M. Olwan

Rami M Olwan

No abstract provided.

Book Review. European Copyright Law: A Commentary., Marshall A. Leaffer

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The (Im)Possibility Of "Standard Technical Measures" For Ugc Websites, Laura G. Gallo

Kernochan Center for Law, Media, and the Arts

In today’s highly litigious legal landscape, one might doubt that there could ever be an “open, fair, voluntary” agreement between copyright owners and service providers to police infringement. Congress nevertheless envisioned such a consensus when it developed § (i) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA): “Conditions for [Safe Harbor] Eligibility.” An often-overlooked provision of the DMCA, § 512(i) directs right holders and Internet service providers to work together and agree on “standard technical measures” to “identify or protect copyrighted works.” In addition to being the product of consensus, these measures must be “available ... on reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms” …

Audiovisual Works And The Work For Hire Doctrine In The Internet Age, John L. Schwab

Kernochan Center for Law, Media, and the Arts

The work for hire doctrine is a legal mechanism by which the creator of an artistic work’s employer is deemed the author of that work. While, historically, such employer ownership schemes were not recognized by courts, today the work for hire doctrine is a firmly embedded part of American copyright law. In particular, work for hire has developed into an essential tool of the audiovisual entertainment industry. As discussed in Part I.B, infra, there are a number of reasons that work for hire is a particularly useful ownership allocation scheme for audiovisual works.

Modern technological developments are, however, rapidly altering …

The Right To Remain Anonymous: Anonymous Speakers, Confidential Sources And The Public Good, Jocelyn Hanamirian

Kernochan Center for Law, Media, and the Arts

In the digital age, the news media gives voice to anonymous speakers in two ways: reporters may extend confidentiality to sources in exchange for newsworthy information, or a news website may host an online comment function that allows readers to post their reactions to content pseudonymously. Of these two groups of anonymous speakers, only online posters enjoy certain First Amendment protection against a subpoena seeking disclosure of their identities.

The reporter’s privilege has always been legally defined as the professional privilege of a reporter to maintain the confidentiality of his sources. Yet as with all evidentiary privileges, the reporter’s privilege …

Moral Rights And Supernatural Fiction: Authorial Dignity And The New Moral Rights Agendas, Jacqueline D. Lipton

Articles

In recent years, several scholars have revisited the question of moral rights protections for creators of copyright works in the United States. Their scholarship has focused on defining a moral rights agenda that comports with American constitutional values, as well as being practically suited to current copyright business practices. Much of this scholarship has prioritized a right of attribution over other moral rights, such as the right of integrity. This Article evaluates some of these recent moral rights models in light of a sample of comments made by American supernatural fiction authors about their works. The Author questions whether the …

The Kindle Controversy: An Economic Analysis Of How The Amazon Kindle's Text-To-Speech Feature Violates Copyright Law, Jeremy B. Francis

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

In 2009, Amazon released the Kindle 2 with a text-to-speech feature. This feature allows users of the Kindle 2 to download software to the device that will read e-books aloud. Authors and publishers of e-books immediately objected to the feature, arguing that it essentially created an unauthorized audiobook. Amazon maintained the legality of the text-to-speech feature, arguing that it does not copy, perform, or create a derivative work. Amazon decided to avoid a legal battle by allowing rightsholders to decide whether to enable the text-to-speech feature for each individual title. The copyright community, however, responded swiftly and nearly unanimously, siding …

Information Wars And The Challenges Of Content Protection In Digital Contexts, Raymond T. Nimmer

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

We are in the midst of a fundamental conflict in law and policy between those who favor maintaining and expanding copyright and related rights in the digital context ("rights enhancers"), and those who favor letting rights atrophy ("rights restrictors'). This Article argues that strong intellectual property rights are essential. At minimum, they are important to support creativity in contexts where the creation, collection, or distribution of the content requires substantial investment of time and resources. The case for allowing creators' rights to weaken is both untested and structurally suspect. Copyright law must construct a balance that fully supports creative activity …

A Hot Mess: How Hot-News Misappropriation Bypassed Copyright Law In Barclays V. Theflyonthewall.Com And Gave Originators A Propriety Right In Facts, Julya E. Vekstein

Catholic University Law Review

No abstract provided.

"European Copyright Code" – Back To First Principles (With Some Additional Detail), Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

The "Wittem Group" of copyright scholars has proposed a "European Copyright Code," to "serve as an important reference tool for future legislatures at the European and national levels." Because, notwithstanding twenty years of Directives and a growing ECJ caselaw, copyright law in EU Member States continues to lack uniformity, the Wittem Group’s endeavor should be welcomed, at least as a starting point for reflection on the desirable design of an EU copyright regime. Whether or not the proposed Code succeeds in influencing national or Community legislation, it does offer an occasion to consider the nature of the rights that copyright …

The In Rem Forfeiture Of Copyright-Infringing Domain Names, Andrew Sellars

Faculty Scholarship

In the summer of 2010, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Division of the Department of Homeland Security began "Operation In Our Sites," an enforcement sweep targeted towards websites allegedly dealing in counterfeit goods and copyright-infringing files. The operation targeted the websites by proceeding in rem against their respective domain names. For websites targeted for copyright infringement, ICE Agents used recently-expanded copyright forfeiture remedies passed under the 2008 PRO-IP Act, providing no adversarial hearing prior to the websites being removed, and only a probable cause standard of proof.

This Paper examines three specific harms resulting from Operation In Our Sites, and …

Readers' Copyright, Jessica D. Litman

Articles

My goal in this project is to reclaim copyright for readers (and listeners, viewers, and other members of the audience). I think, and will try to persuade you, that the gradual and relatively recent disappearance of readers’ interests from the core of copyright’s perceived goals has unbalanced the copyright system. It may have prompted, at least in part, the scholarly critique of copyright that has fueled copyright lawyers’ impression that “so many in academia side with the pirates.” It may also be responsible for much of the deterioration in public support for copyright. I argue here that copyright seems out …

Copyright In The Digital Environment: Restoring The Balance, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

Good evening. Please find your seats, and it's wonderful to see so many people here. Welcome to the Twenty-Fourth Annual Manges Lecture. The Horace S. Manges Lecture and Conference Fund was established by the firm of Weil, Gotshal and Manges in memory of Horace S. Manges, Columbia Law School Class of 1919. Mr. Manges was a distinguished trial lawyer who worked on behalf of countless writers and publishers.

Tonight's speaker, Dr. Francis Gurry, was appointed Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO, on October 30, 2008. During a career at WIPO that began in 1985, Francis Gurry was …