Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

Staying Afloat In The Internet Stream: How To Keep Web Radio From Drowning In Digital Copyright Royalties, Emily D. Harwood

Federal Communications Law Journal

In the 1990's, the development of "streaming" technology allowed webcasters to begin broadcasting music on the Internet. The public took advantage of a plethora of free media players, and the number of web-based radio stations soared. However, a crippling dispute over broadcast rates left the viability of this technology in doubt. This Note criticizes current policies that curtail radio streaming by providing harsh financial restrictions on webcasters. In looking to the future, this Note argues that Congress should extend licensing exemptions to cover those Internet stations most like their AM/FM counterparts who do not have to pay additional fees.

Institutional Reckless Disregard For Truth In Public Defamation Actions Against The Press, Randall P. Bezanson

ExpressO

Since its beginning, the actual malice test first announced in 1964 in New York Times v. Sullivan, has suffered from problems that are increasingly traceable to the changing face of journalism. Its demand that the mind of the reporter be proved "with convincing clarity" has adverse consequences for plaintiffs and news organizations alike. End runs around the subjective state of mind inquiry by plaintiffs have become more common. And the actual malice test's predictability, its capacity as a standard of liability to yield consistent and coherent results across a body of cases, remains a hollow promise. As Robert Sack famously …

From The Cluetrain To The Panopticon: Isp Activity Characterization And Control Of Internet Communications, Eric Evans

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

If ISPs are exposed to liability for forwarding others' messages--messages originating with other ISPs or with the ISP's own users--the norm of universal mutual message forwarding that underlies the present operation of the Internet will be threatened. This Note will argue that society presently confronts a choice between a common carrier Internet characterized by universal mutual message forwarding and a monitored and controlled Internet. Part I will describe the underlying rules that govern ISPs' liability for their users' actions. Part II will argue that the present statutory regime governing ISPs' liability for users' copyright infringement includes elements that provide ISPs …

Who Owns The 'First Rough Draft Of History'? Reconsidering Copyright In News, Eric B. Easton

ExpressO

Who Owns the ‘First Rough Draft of History’? suggests the withdrawal of copyright protection from hard-news journalism as a mechanism for “rescuing” the news from the inexorable downward spiral in quality and diversity caused by excessive media concentration. Although copyright represents just one of the factors contributing to the “commodification” of news today, it is a significant factor, and one with a long, unsavory relationship with censorship and monopoly.

The article asserts that newspapers’ quest for copyright protection was an early step onto a slippery slope toward a property-based, rather than service-based ethos, and that removing protection may mark a …

Are You Still Settling For Cable? A Case For Broader Application Of The Fcc’S Over-The-Air Reception Devices Rule, Lavonda N. Reed-Huff

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

Many renters in the United States have no choice when it comes to selecting a video or communications service provider for their residence, due to their inability to install satellite dishes on their rental property. Because of this lack of choice, many must rely on traditional broadcast television, cable service and traditional telephone dial-up for receiving video programming and accessing advanced technologies such as the Internet. Others simply go without service altogether. While the FCC has attempted to address this problem, the rule they have promulgated, known as the "OTARD Rule," fails to go far enough to make video and …

"Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me:" An In-Depth Look At Opportunistic Business Method Patent Licensing And A Proposed Solution To Allow Small-Defendant Business Method Users To Sing A Happier Tune, 37 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1359 (2004), Andrea Lynn Evensen

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Cross Burning Revisited: What The Supreme Court Should Have Done In Virginia V. Black And Why It Didn’T, W. Wat Hopkins

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

The Supreme Court of the United States, in R.A. V. v. St. Paul, created a complicated framework of law that, despite years of case law to the contrary, would allow a court to hold a law banning cross burning to be constitutional, even if the law was not content-neutral. The ruling caused considerable problems in cases involving cross burning that reached lower appellate courts. In Virginia v. Black, the Court had the opportunity to resolve the problem, but refused to do so. Instead, the Court restructured the law related to intimidating and threatening speech, creating even more ambiguity. Under the …

Play It Again, Sam: Webcasters’ Sound Recording Complement As An Unconstitutional Restraint On Free Speech, Amanda S. Reid

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

Music embodies two copyrights: one for the words and notes, and another for the particular sound recording. Copyright law provides for a compulsory license that enables a Webcaster to transmit songs without first negotiating price and permission, provided a royalty fee is paid. A condition for being eligible for the statutory license is compliance with the "sound recording performance complement," which limits the number of songs that may be played during a three-hour period to no more than three songs from one album, and no more than two songs back to back. This Article argues that the "sound recording performance …

Redefining The Transformative Use Of Copyrighted Works: Toward A Fair Use Standard In The Digital Environment, Jisuk Woo

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

This paper analyzes the transformative use factor in fair use analysis of copyright law. The author argues that, in the changing information environment stimulated by digital information technology, the end user's creativity in their activities of using works of authorship should be the focus in applying the principle of transformative use rather than the subsequent creation of transformed work as found in the lower court cases after Campbell.

But We Have To Protect Our Source: How Electronic Voting Companies' Proprietary Code Ruins Elections, Andrew Massey

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

In the wake of the disastrous 2000 Presidential election, reformers turned to touch-screen electronic voting machines, or DREs, to avoid repeating Florida's experience with endless recounts and hanging chads. As soon as DREs were introduced, however, criticism quickly mounted, focusing on the machines' error-ridden code, inability to perform recounts, and susceptibility to hacking. This note explores how the problems associated with DREs stem directly from their reliance on proprietary source code. This note puts forth the argument that proprietary code place's electronic voting companies' intellectual property rights ahead of the public's need for an accountable and transparent voting system. In …

Holding The Spymasters Accountable After 9/11: A Proposed Model For Cia Disclosure Requirements Under The Freedom Of Information Act, Martin E. Halstuk

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

For the last two decades, near-blanket CIA secrecy has gone largely unchecked, principally because of CIA v. Sims, a sweeping 1985 U.S. Supreme Court decision that exempted the Agency from virtually any disclosure requirements under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The uncurbed secrecy that the Court has sanctioned effectively blocks public and press efforts to evaluate CIA performance, thus making Agency accountability difficult, if not impossible. The well-publicized missteps and failures by the CIA in connection with the 9/11 terrorist attacks illustrate the follies of how excessive secrecy can conceal grave problems in Agency management. This article argues that …

Sharing And Stealing, Jessica Litman

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

The purpose of copyright is to encourage the creation and mass dissemination of a wide variety of works. Until recently, most means of mass dissemination required a significant capital investment. The lion's share of the economic proceeds of copyrights were therefore channeled to publishers and distributors, and the law was designed to facilitate that. Digital distribution invites us to reconsider all of the assumptions underlying that model. We are still in the early history of the networked digital environment, but already we've seen experiments with both direct and consumer-to-consumer distribution of works of authorship. One remarkable example of the difference …

Picking Up The Pieces Of Grokster: A New Approach To File Sharing, Tom Graves

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

The introduction of peer-to-peer file-sharing has created a plethora of new legal issues regarding the creation and distribution of music recordings. The music, however, is only half of the story. The case of MGM Studios v. Grokster addresses the tension between promoting progress in music and protecting the development of new technologies. Although it may be time to revisit the judicial standard for vicarious and contributory copyright infringement in the file-sharing context, a new legislative framework must ultimately be found. The creators of music should be compensated for their work, but not at the unnecessary expense of new and useful …

Can The Right Of Publicity Afford Free Speech - A New Right Of Publicity Test For First Amendment Cases, Jason K. Levine

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

The right of publicity finds itself increasingly threatened by the First Amendment. Recent decisions at both the state and federal levels have served to highlight the confusion and lack of uniformity. For example, the Ninth Circuit recently held that an artist could not sell T-shirts with a charcoal drawing of the Three Stooges without permission, yet shortly thereafter the Sixth Circuit rejected Tiger Woods' attempt to prevent an artist from selling a painting of him winning a golf tournament, on essentially the same grounds. The author argues that the right of publicity and the First Amendment can co-exist, but that …

The Unusual Suspects: Unscrambling Satellite Piracy, David V. Lampman Ii

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The (New?) Right Of Making Available To The Public, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

The Berne Convention 1971 Paris Act covered the right of communication to the public incompletely and imperfectly through a tangle of occasionally redundant or self-contradictory provisions on "public performance," "communication to the public," "public communication," "broadcasting," and other forms of transmission. Worse, the scope of rights depended on the nature of the work, with musical and dramatic works receiving the broadest protection, and images the least; literary works, especially those adapted into cinematographic works, lying somewhere in between. The 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty rationalized and synthesized protection by establishing full coverage of the communication right for all protected works of …

Booze, Drugs, And Rock & Roll: Crime During The College Years, Paul S. Gutman

ExpressO

In this Article, the author examines the predilection of college and university students towards certain types of illegal behaviors. Specifically, the Article considers the widespread instances of drug use, under-age alcohol use, and "file-sharing" using Napster and its progeny. The Article's main focus is on why such illegal behaviors are rampant among college students who might otherwise be

Monopoly Power In The Electronic Information Industry: Why, And So What?, Curt A. Hessler

ExpressO

This "law and economics" article diagnoses why monopoly power infects so many markets in the electronic media, communications, and information technology industries (collectively the "Industry"),and recommends changes to prevailing intellectual property and antitrust doctrines to remedy this problem.

The analysis focuses on a single "norm" -- the maximization of economic value, as defined by standard welfare economic theory. Identifying three distinct functions that operate throughout this otherwise diverse Industry -- authoring, publishing, and distribution -- the article notes that two economic peculiarities characterize most Industry markets: the technical feasibility of "non-rivalrous use" of digitized information products, and the frequent "creative …

Le Droit Et Les Reseaux Internationaux D'Information, Joel R. Reidenberg

Faculty Scholarship

Travaux pour obtenir le grade de Docteur De L'Universite Paris I. Discipline: Droit. Sujet des publications: Le Droit Et Les Reseaux Internationaux D'Information

Jazz Photo And The Doctrine Of Patent Exhaustion: Implications To Trips And International Harmonization Of Patent Protection, Daniel Erlikman

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

The doctrine of patent exhaustion prevents the patent owner from controlling the further destiny of the patented invention once the owner authorized the first sale or use of the product in the marketplace. In recent years, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit advanced a modified rule of exhaustion, which permits the U.S. patent holder to contractually restrict the first purchaser's subsequent re-use or re-sale of the product. The recent Jazz Photo decision is a controversial and unjustified switch from existing U.S. jurisprudence in the field of patent exhaustion and parallel imports. By applying a territorial rule …

The Biology Of The Broadcast Flag, Susan P. Crawford

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and its content affiliates would like all consumer electronics and information technology companies to innovate "according to the rules." The arguments made by the MPAA and its content colleagues in support of national (and, eventually, global) control over the functionality of the devices that manipulate content are fundamentally troubling for the future of innovation and the future of law itself. But the content industry has hit on a very important way of thinking about law. We should pay attention to the evolutionary ecosystem of the law as the background medium in which innovation …

Considerations On The Emerging Implementation Of Biometric Technology, Robin Feldman

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

The United States is embarking on widespread implementation of biometric technology, which uses automated methods to identify people based on their physiological and behavioral characteristics. Regardless of how much we invest in establishing standards for reliability of the technology and protections of the data, no system will be foolproof. Biometric determinations will be subject to mistakes, fraud, and abuse through human and technological error, both intentional and inadvertent. We should, therefore, take this opportunity to develop methods for individuals to review and challenge biometric determinations. In particular, this article suggests a doctrinal framework for challenging biometric determinations made by administrative …

The Perils Of Telemarketing Under The Telephone Consumer Protection Act Sending Unsolicited Faxes Costs Dallas Cowboys $1.73 Million, Leaves Dallas Mavericks Under Full Court Pressure, Paul J. Batista

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

In 1991, Congress passed the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) to "protect the privacy interests" of outraged constituents who received annoying phone calls from telemarketers. The Act prohibits sending unsolicited faxes to unwilling recipients, and creates fines up to $1,500 for each individual fax. The Dallas Mavericks have been sued under the Act, creating potential liability of $135 million. Fax broadcasters have unsuccessfully challenged the Act under the First and Fifth Amendments. The Act grants jurisdiction to individual state courts, and a Georgia case has resulted in a final judgment of $11,899,000.

How To Constitutionally Protect Against Virtual Child Pornography, Emanuel Shiarzi

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

The improvement of computer graphics and its resulting burden on prosecuting real child pornography led Congress to pass the Child Pornography Prevention Act (CPPA) of 1996. However, in addition to prohibiting virtual child pornography the CPPA banned many other areas of protected speech and was held unconstitutional in 2002. This article gives an overview of the First Amendment concerns of future virtual child pornography laws, the laws currently being proposed in Congress, and then proposes its own constitutional virtual child pornography law.

China And The Prior Consent Requirement: A Decade Of Invasion And Counter-Invasion By Transfrontier Satellite Television, Mei Ning Yan

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

This paper examines and analyzes why the majority of television viewers in China can only have access to domestic television at the beginning of the 21st century, despite direct broadcasting by satellite, which respects no national borders being widely employed in Asia for a decade. By applying national broadcasting rules, this paper argues, the Chinese authorities have successfully given effect to the "prior consent requirement," a concept which was fiercely debated in the international arena and has supposedly long been discarded because of disagreement among nations and technological advances.

New Media, New Rules: The Digital Performance Right And Streaming Media Over The Internet, Joseph E. Magri

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Streaming music over the Internet, or what otherwise is known as webcasting or Internet radio, has the potential to become the single most revolutionary means of music transmission ever developed.' In order to appreciate the potential impact of Internet radio, it is helpful to understand that Internet radio has the ability to venture far beyond the at-home personal computer that is tethered to a wall and logged-on to the Internet. With advances in wireless broadband technologies, such as wireless fidelity or Wi-Fi, and the growing availability of Internet content via mobile devices,' Internet radio will soon become widely available on …

Examining The Evidence: Post-Verdict Interviews And The Jury System, Nicole B. Casarez

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

Although jury deliberations are kept secret, jurors sometimes speak out to the press after the conclusion of a trial about the rationale for their verdict, what pieces of evidence were important to their decision, and similar issues. Some argue that post-verdict juror interviews are harmful to the very foundation of the jury system, because they endanger defendants' fair trial rights, invade jurors' privacy, and distort public perception of jury verdicts. However, others, such as the author, consider these post-verdict interviews important, because they permit the public to gain a better understanding of the verdicts as well as the nature of …

Unmasking Crack_Smoking_Jesus: Do Internet Service Providers Have A Tarasoff Duty To Divulge The Identity Of A Subscriber Who Is Making Death Threats, Jon B. Eisenberg, Jeremy B. Rosen

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

Based on a personal experience. During ongoing litigation, the authors' clients began receiving pseudonymous threats by email and on an Internet message board maintained by Yahoo! Inc. This experience led the authors to ask themselves a question: What should lawyers do when their clients receive anonymous death threats electronically during the pendency of litigation? In their case, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) determined the identity of the perpetrator and the local United States Attorney's office eventually commenced prosecution. However, pursuant to rules of federal grand jury secrecy, the perpetrator's identity still remained a secret. When the identity was sought …

File-Sharing Copyright, And Privacy, Stephen Keating

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

Lawsuits brought by the recording industry against Internet users accused of illegal file sharing raise provocative questions about legal tactics, the piracy of copyrighted material, the openness of the Internet, and the future of peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing. The history of satellite TV piracy may provide a key to understanding what comes next.

Newton V. Diamond: Measuring The Legitimacy Of Unauthorized Compositional Sampling— A Clue Illuminated And Obscured, Susan J. Latham

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

This article discusses how the district court in Newton v. Diamond could have provided the music industry with a path of reasonable determination via which the risk of infringement due to unauthorized digital sampling of a musical composition could be reasonably estimated and prudent licensing decisions made. At the very least, it illuminated a clue through its threshold determination of protectability. However, as the author explains, the court of appeals obscured that clue beneath a conundrum of de minimis use analysis, highlighting the need for courts to settle upon a clear and consistent standard for de minimis use analysis.