Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Law

Using Public Disclosure As The Vesting Point For Moral Rights Under The Visual Artists Rights Act, Elizabeth M. Bock Oct 2011

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 …


Hatch-Waxmanizing Copyright, Michal Shur-Ofry Jan 2011

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 Jan 2011

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, …


Readers' Copyright, Jessica D. Litman Jan 2011

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 …