Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

Cross-Border Limitations And Exceptions To Copyright: “Powered By Ai”, Marketa Trimble

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

Businesses and institutions that wish to utilize copyright-protected works in multiple countries face a multiplicity of national copyright laws; although national copyright laws have been harmonized in accordance with several international treaties, and harmonized even more in the European Union member states by European Union legislation, countries’ copyright laws continue to vary. The multiplicity of national copyright laws raises costs of transnational operations, including for businesses and institutions that rely on limitations and exceptions to copyright (“L&Es”) in multiple countries. For example, AI companies might want to rely on L&Es to train and deploy their AI in multiple countries, as …

Recreate's Amicus Submission To The Constitutional Court In South Africa, May 2025, Iain Currie, Emma Webber, Daniel Linde, Sibongiseni Qagana

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

The Copyright Amendment Bill in South Africa aims to reform the copyright regime to provide additional rights to creators and users of copyrighted material. The main provisions for creators are a royalty right and increased control over commissioned works. For users, a series of exceptions and limitations are to be introduced.These include fair use for purposes such as education, personal use and research, as well as exceptions for libraries, archives and people with disabilities. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa referred the legislation to the Constitutional Court, primarily over concerns that the new rights for creators and users would constitute an …

(The Lack Of) Fan Fiction Litigation: Why Do Creators Refrain From Suit?, Channah Klapper

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

This Note explores the status of contemporary fan fiction under United States copyright law. It begins by tracing the historical development of fan fiction and then examines fan fiction’s legal treatment in the internet age, with a focus on the potential application of the fair use doctrine. It surveys relevant case law and considers the notable absence of litigation by content creators against fan fiction authors. Finally, it offers a number of possible explanations for this reluctance to pursue legal action.

Record Piracy And Copyright: Present Inadequacies And Future Overkill, Peter Ballou

Maine Law Review

This comment explores different types of piracy from both a legal and an economic point of view, and suggests that raising the status of some of the economic distinctions to legal distinctions may well serve the public interest better than the present legal distinctions or those proposed in the Copyright Revision Bill. In brief, the record companies are rightfully concerned about the vast amount of piracy of many of their most profitable recordings. On the other hand, there are vast numbers of unavailable and presumably unprofitable recordings which are apparently desired by some consumers and many musical works which, and …

Intellectual Property Or Modern Folklore? The Problem With Open Gaming Licenses In Tabletop Gaming, Rosie Midget

Seattle University Law Review

This Note addresses how courts and legislatures should address “Open Gaming Licenses” commonly attached to tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs), which game publishers use to promote a false image of accessibility—misleading consumers and building goodwill from the misunderstanding. Part I discusses what TTRPGs are, including the defining features of the hobby and culture surrounding it, as well as the unique interplay between publishers and players. Part II explores the question of which elements in a TTRPG system may be subject to copyright protection. Part III examines these elements in practice using Wizards of the Coast’s Dungeons and Dragons TTRPG as a …

The Ai Input Class: Constitutional Urgency And Fair Licensing In Ai Copyright Class Actions, Xuan-Thao Nguyen, Elizabeth G. Porter

Articles

The humanities have long been under attack; now Big Tech is eating them for breakfast. Artificial Intelligence is undermining the cultural and constitutional values of human creativity; it is also threatening the livelihoods of the creative working class. Because neither Congress nor regulators can keep pace with AI’s pace of change, class actions have stepped into the breach. In the first wave of such litigation, authors and artists in courts on both coasts claim that AI companies violate intellectual property law when they “train” their systems on copyrighted works.

This Article analyzes what we call “input” AI claims—that is, proposed …

What Copyright Can't Do, Blake E. Reid

Pepperdine Law Review

Copyright has become a powerful regulatory regime for modern American life. Copyrighted works, including text, images, video, sounds, music, and software, coupled with routine, frictionless copying, form a large part of the information, cultural and social context, and infrastructure of our increasingly digital society. Copyright law’s powerful remedies are now positioned to intervene in a wide range of everyday activities. As a result, scholars, policymakers, and advocates have increasingly called for modifying and applying U.S. copyright law to solve a wide range of public policy problems, from vindicating disability rights to protecting privacy to promoting competition among wireless carriers. But …

Ai-Generated Content And Copyright Infringement: Analyzing Corporate Liability In The Era Of Artificial Intelligence, Gloria Domingos, Dr. Daria Koucherets

Seattle University Law Review Online

Recent lawsuits by major content creators against artificial intelligence companies have brought a critical legal question to the forefront: Under current U.S. copyright law, can AI companies be held liable for direct copyright infringement when their systems generate outputs that substantially mirror protected works? This question has gained particular urgency as AI systems like ChatGPT and DALL-E demonstrate increasingly sophisticated capabilities to generate content that may replicate elements of copyrighted materials.

The answer, based on current legal precedent and statutory frameworks, is that AI companies can likely be held liable for direct copyright infringement. However, traditional tests for establishing such …

A Peek Behind The Scenes Of Supreme Court Decision Making Concerning The Federal Ip System, Jonathan Band

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

In the 1970s and 80s, the Supreme Court decided three cases that continue to define the limits of the authority of the states within the federal intellectual property system: Goldstein v. California (1973); Kewanee Oil Co. v. Bicron Oil Co. (1974); and Bonito Boats v. Thunder Craft Boats, Inc. (1989). The papers of the Supreme Court Justices that decided these cases show the Court as a human institution wrestling with this complex issue. This issue has assumed new importance as state legislatures have rushed to enact laws on the use of generative artificial intelligence to replicate the voice …

Documentary History Of The Limitations And Exceptions In The Sccr, Luca Schirru, Lokesh Vyas, Haddija Jawara, Lukas Ruthes Gonçalves, Sean Flynn

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

The objective of this study is to systematically map all meetings of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) and the General Assemblies (GA) of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to extract, compile, and organize all relevant statements made by Member States regarding the Limitations and Exceptions (L&Es).

The analysis was based on publicly available data from the WIPO website, particularly the official pages dedicated to each SCCR and GA meeting. Our primary focus was on statements recorded in the official "Report" document of each session. When available, we also examined supplementary documents, such as the "Summary …

The Art That Makes The Ai Artist: Ai’S Potential As A Copyright Infringer And Its Future Under A Licensing Requirement, Bailee Jetton

Georgia Journal of Law & Technology

The practices and advancements in the generative AI training process have sent many authors and artists in the creative industry into a panic. In addition to demonstrating output that can rival human-made works, many AI companies rely on copying hundreds of thousands of copyrighted works to teach their AI models. This raises the question of whether AI companies are infringing or if they are permitted to use the work for training purposes under the fair use doctrine. Through current precedent within copyright law and the fair use defense, this note analyzes whether generative AI’s use of copyrighted materials will be …

Bootlegging For The Better: Livestreams And The Music Industry, Delta Pennington

Georgia Journal of Law & Technology

As online presence has continued to become a more important aspect of everyday, it has become a norm in American Culture to share every aspect of life, including concert attendance. While artists expressed distaste in the past for recording at concerts, there has been a shift by musicians to acceptance of recording at concerts, sometimes being an important form of cheap promotion. Artists that do continue to express distaste for concerts being shared on social media have turned to non-legal remedies to solve their problem. Although there is a remedy available to artists for the livestreaming of concerts through the …

The Fringe Musician, The 360 Deal, And A New Look At Copyright And Competition In Music, Michael L. Menna

Georgia Journal of Law & Technology

This article is guided by two questions: (1) How well does the law actually protect musicians from market exploitation? (2) What new perspectives and legal strategies can better secure their bargaining power and financial wellbeing? Copyright and antitrust are not mutually exclusive in music or in any other industry, yet there are important lessons to be learned from comparing how the musician’s prominence in each doctrine does and doesn’t correlate to what its laws can really do for different members of that creator class. Stakeholders frequently cast copyright as an essential necessity for “everyone in the music industry,” but this …

Art Wants To Be Free, Brian L. Frye

Georgia Journal of Law & Technology

What is fair use? In Warhol v. Goldsmith, the Supreme Court held that licensing a painting based on a photograph wasn’t a transformative fair use, because the painting competed with the photograph in the market for images of the same person. This article tells the story of Warhol v. Goldsmith, analyzes the opinion, and explains how it changed copyright doctrine. It also presents a theory of how appropriation artists can use the public domain to insulate themselves from liability for copyright infringement.

The “Blurred Lines” Between Copyright Law And Its Role In The Music Industry, Caroline Mcdonald

Senior Theses

This thesis examines the dynamic relationship between copyright law and the music industry by analyzing three landmark cases: Bright Tunes Music Corp. v. Harrisongs Music, Ltd., Williams v. Gaye, and Skidmore v. Zeppelin. Through these case studies, the paper explores how courts assess copyright infringement using the tests of extrinsic and intrinsic similarity, as well as identifies the weight of expert testimony in court, and the role of legal tools such as the inverse-ratio rule. Each case illustrates different implications for artists: from the threat of subconscious plagiarism to the controversial expansion of protectable musical elements, and finally, a shift …

Analysis Of The Agenda For Sccr 46, Pijip

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

Protection of Broadcasting Organizations

The central question for the Broadcasting Treaty, in line with the 2007 General Assembly Mandate, is whether there is sufficient “agreement on objectives, specific scope and object of protection” to warrant a recommendation for a diplomatic conference. (WO/GA/34/16). The 2006 GA mandated that the Broadcasting Treaty be “confined to the protection of broadcasting and cablecasting organizations in the traditional sense” and “based on a signal-based approach” (WO/GA/33/10, para 107, 2006).

The SCCR 45 Chair’s Summary states:“[w]ith respect to objectives, there is common understanding … that the treaty should be narrowly focused on …

Un©Ertainty And Dis©Omfort, Richard Chused

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

This essay explores creative works that produce powerful reactions of discernment, hostility, or deep uncertainty from mysterious forms of “blankness.” They all use silence or similarly ineffable qualities to challenge the thoughtfulness and tolerance of audience members. They force us to understand that creativity sometimes manifests itself in strange and bizarre ways that test not only our viewing tolerance, but also our traditional notions of creativity and of intellectual property boundary lines. It is like forcing fully sensory-enabled people to think about creativity in ways that may mimic a small fragment of the daily experience of those with limited sight …

Quo Vadis, Fair Use? The Future Of Fair Use After The Warhol Decision, Vicenç Feliú, Josh Lida

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

This article critically examines the recent Supreme Court decision in Warhol v. Goldsmith and its impact on fair use within the realm of visual art. The paper traces the historical development of fair use from its inception in Folsom v. Marsh in 1841 to its formal integration into the Copyright Act of 1976 and subsequent evolution through landmark Supreme Court rulings.

The article focuses on the Court’s scrutiny of the first factor of the fair use doctrine in Warhol v. Goldsmith, particularly the emphasis on commercial intent in determining fair use. It argues that the Court’s elevation of commercial …

The Times They Are A-Changin': Adapting Copyright Law To Generative Ai, Giovanni Lomonaco

Pace Law Review

Artificial intelligence has come a long way since the days of the “heartless” tin man of the Wizard of Oz, and the cool, precise autonomy of Kit from Nightrider. We have moved rapidly from mere questions about what life could be like with autonomous machines, to having books, movies, and albums created using machines for part or even all of the process. The Copyright Act, however, has not come as long of a way since the implementation of the most recent version of the Act in 1976. Recently, the federal district court for the District of Columbia held …

Documentary History Of The Broadcast Treaty In The Sccr (Global Version), Luca Schirru, Lokesh Vyas, Haddija Jawara, Lukas Ruthes Gonçalves, Katie Mcgee, Yara Misto, Sean Michael Fiil Flynn

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

The objective of this study is to systematically map all meetings of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) and the General Assemblies (GA) of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to extract, compile, and organize all relevant statements made Member States regarding the proposed Broadcasting Treaty.

The analysis was based on publicly available data from the WIPO website, particularly the official pages dedicated to each SCCR and GA meeting. Our primary focus was on statements recorded in the official "Report" document of each session. When available, we also examined supplementary documents, such as the "Summary by the …

Objectives And Principles For An Instrument On Limitations And Exceptions: Relevant Excerpts And Proposals, Sean Flynn, Luca Schirru

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

The Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) has been mandated by the 2012 General Assembly to work toward “an appropriate international legal instrument or instruments (whether through model law, joint recommendation, treaty, and/or other forms)”. In SCCR 43, the Committee adopted a Work Program (SCCR/43/8) to draft “objectives, principles, and options” for potential instruments. With the goal of facilitating the discussion within the Committee and the design of principles and objectives, our research team systematically gathered and organized relevant excerpts from a variety of sources including existing treaties, laws, SCCR documents, academic contributions, and civil society proposals. This document …

World Wide Whac-A-Mole: The Inadequacies Of The Dmca To Protect Copyright Holders Online And Why Artificial Intelligence Is The Solution, Nathania Davis-Fox

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

Congress created the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) at the dawn of the internet age 25 years ago. It addressed the needs and concerns of Online Service Providers (OSPs) in the nascent cyber landscape, but the DMCA must now be reformed to meet the needs of Web 2.0. The DMCA’s refusal to condition §512(c) safe harbor protection on OSPs’ platform monitoring is no longer practical. This now produces results contrary to the Copyright Act’s purpose of encouraging the creation and dissemination of new works. Copyright owners are fighting a losing battle against infringing OSP users and the DMCA’s notice-and-takedown procedures …

Reforming Copyright Or Toward Another Science? A More Human Rights-Oriented Approach Under The Rebspa In Constructing A "Right To Research" For Scholarly Publishing, Klaus Beiter

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

This article identifies copyright impediments existing in the sphere of science, and then tentatively suggests how such impediments may be overcome. It focuses on scholarly publishing only, and here primarily on digital content, and specifically asks whether expensive commercial scholarly publishers continue to “add value” to research in the digital era. The deficits of copyright law and potential solutions thereto are assessed in the light of the right of everyone “to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications” (REBSPA) as laid down in Article 15(1)(b) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) of 1966. …

Redefining Intellectual Property Protection: Nfl Plays In The Digital Age, Michael Touma

Washington Law Review Online

American copyright law is fluid. Its changes have mirrored evolutions in society, be they technological, cultural, or economic. At its core, copyright law exists to promote the progress of the arts and sciences; yet, the law’s outdated nature leaves many creations on the outside looking in. The last substantial copyright legislation to pass through Congress was the Copyright Act of 1976, which was nearly fifty years ago. Much has changed since, including vast technological improvements, new and emerging interests in American society, and now global economic drivers. One industry that meets these characteristics and is not currently afforded protection is …

The Great War (Taylor's Version): Examining The New Era Of Recording Artists & Master Recording Ownership, Victoria B. Villanueva

Journal of Legislation

In 2019, Taylor Swift took to social media to voice her unease with the recent sale of her entire master recording catalogue to Ithaca Holdings, a sale that allegedly occurred without her explicit permission. Following a series of negotiations, holdouts, and ultimate deadlock, Swift made the critical and costly decision to re-record and re-release each of those six albums under her sole ownership in an effort to reclaim them as her own work—re-recordings publicly denoted by “Taylor’s Version”. This highly-publicized feud brought to the public’s attention a decades-long conflict between the recording artist and the recording company, one that has …

Copyright's Dominion, Shani Shisha

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Copyright law is under attack. Scholars and activists have long argued that American copyright law is a shambolic mess—vague, unpredictable, and startlingly overbroad. But amidst the swirling chaos, one core principle has remained intact: the idea that copyright attaches only to intangible goods. In theory, copyright resides in an intangible work of authorship, not a physical artifact. It is the intellectual creation, rather than the material copy, that gives rise to copyright protection. Copyright law thus rests on a stark distinction between the intellectual property of authors and the personal property of consumers—in short, between the intangible work and the …

The Second Life Of Information, Thomas D. Haley

UF Law Faculty Publications

Information permeates every aspect of modern life. It is the price we pay for access to online services and the form in which we embody creative works. Law and policymaking tend to focus on first-order uses and transactions; information for access serves as the paradigmatic example. But information enjoys a robust second life—one that constitutes the true value and power that drives firms’ decisionmaking—as assets. Once aggregated and assetized, the power and risk associated with information increases exponentially.

To explore the implications of information’s second life, this Article introduces the concept of “untethered information.” Assetization depends on severing the connections …

A Personal Interview With William Patry: His Thoughts On Music, Ai, And Copyright

IP Theory

No abstract provided.

Generative Ai's Copyright Enigma: A Comparative Study Of Fair Use And Fair Dealing, Taysir Awad

IP Theory

At the dawn of this decade, generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) models were at the apogee of modern science and technology. Their emergence introduced the world to a new paradigm of creativity and innovation, where machines can synthesize art, literature, and design with unprecedented sophistication, blurring the boundaries between human ingenuity and algorithmic computation. These models have the capacity to regenerate Oscar Wilde with the depiction of Ansel Adams, rewrite Harry Potter with William Shakespear’s proverbial tongue, and redesign St. Peter’s Basilica with Gothic arches, Seljuk carved stones, and an Antoni Gaudi roof architecture, relocated in the heart of New York …

Patent Law: An Open-Access Casebook, Sarah Fackrell, Sarah R. Wasserman Rajec, Andres Sawicki

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.