Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

Innovation Heuristics: Experiments On Sequential Creativity In Intellectual Property, Stefan Bechtold, Christopher Buccafusco, Christopher Jon Sprigman

Indiana Law Journal

All creativity and innovation build on existing ideas. Authors and inventors copy, adapt, improve, interpret, and refine the ideas that have come before them. The central task of intellectual property (IP) law is regulating this sequential innovation to ensure that initial creators and subsequent creators receive the appropriate sets of incentives. Although many scholars have applied the tools of economic analysis to consider whether IP law is successful in encouraging cumulative innovation, that work has rested on a set of untested assumptions about creators’ behavior. This Article reports four novel creativity experiments that begin to test those assumptions. In particular, …

“Going Viral” By Stealing Content: Can The Law Cure The Problem Of Viral Content Farming?, Sara Gates

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

Part I introduces the concept of viral content farming, examines its origins, points out how it differs from aggregation, and consid-ers the purpose behind the practice. The Part looks at how compa-nies such as Google and Facebook have responded, and examines the overall impact on journalism and the Internet. Part II presents a possible ethical solution within the journalism industry and consid-ers resolutions in the law by describing the “hot news” misappro-priation doctrine and copyright law. Part III scrutinizes three pro-posals and discusses why copyright law is the most appropriate solution to the problem, then analyzes content farming within the …

A Comparison Of Ontario's Accessibility For Ontarians With Disabilities Act And The Canadian Copyright Act: Compliance, Enforcement, Risks, And The Implications For Ontario Community Colleges, Meaghan Shannon

Master of Studies in Law Research Papers Repository

The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act [AODA] confers rights of accessibility by detailing how individuals and organizations offering goods and services should comply and monitoring compliance through the Accessibility Directorate of Ontario. By contrast, the federal Copyright Act confers rights upon authors and other rights owners without detailing how users of works and other materials can achieve compliance with the Act and without establishing an administrative body to monitor compliance. This research, through a case study of a community college, compares and contrasts the implications of the two different legislative styles in terms of the risks borne by affected …

Copyright And Contract Law: Economic Theory Of Copyright Contracts, Richard Watt

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

Copyright And Contract Law: Regulating Creator Contracts: The State Of The Art And A Research Agenda, Martin Kretschmer

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

How Oracle Erred: Functionality, Useful Articles, And The Future Of Computer Copyright, Wendy J. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

In Oracle v. Google (2015), the Federal Circuit addressed whether the " method header " components of a dominant computer program were uncopyrightable as " merging " with the headers' ideas or function. Google had copied the headers to ease the ability of third-party programmers to interact with Google's Android platform. The court rebuffed the copyrightability challenge; it reasoned that because the plaintiff's expression might have been written in alternative forms, there was no " merger " of idea and expression. But the Oracle court may have been asking the wrong question. In Lotus v. Borland (1995), the owner of …

Give Me Liberty And Give Me Death: The Conflict Between Copyright Law And Estates Law, Michael Rosenbloum

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

Brief Amicus Curiae Of Copyright Law Professors In Lotus Development Corp. V. Borland International, Inc., Pamela Samuelson

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

The End Of The Work As We Know It, Michael J. Madison

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

Rants And Raves: Craigslist's Attempt To Stop Innovating Third-Party Web Developers With Copyright Law, Stephanie Marie Davies

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

Fair Use And The New Transformative, Brian Sites

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Creative Sparks: Works Of Nature, Selection, And The Human Author, Neal F. Burstyn

Kernochan Center for Law, Media, and the Arts

It is now common knowledge that if you put a bunch of monkeys in a room with a typewriter, they will eventually reproduce the works of Shakespeare. But according to the United States Copyright Office, if you give that same group of monkeys a camera, you do not get copyright in any pictures they may happen to take. In 2011, British wildlife photographer David Slater was in Indonesia when a group of crested black macaques began playing with his camera equipment and snapped some pictures, one of which went viral and proved temporarily profitable for Slater. The popular image, known …

A Fresh Look At Copyright On Campus, Jacob H. Rooksby

Law Faculty Publications

The role of copyright on the modern college and university campus is overdue for fresh examination. Copyright ownership issues and related con- tests over rights risk impeding higher education’s ability to serve as a cultural and knowledge commons, a specially constructed space where human and artifactual resources interact in ways that benefit society at large. At present, copyright concerns raised by trends involving student entrepreneurship, the digital humanities, and the digitization of special collections material housed in campus libraries threaten higher education’s potential to benefit society to the fullest.

This Article reviews developments in these three areas of higher education …

The Most Moral Of Rights: The Right To Be Recognized As The Author Of One's Work, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

The U.S. Constitution authorizes Congress to secure for limited times the exclusive right of authors to their writings. Curiously, those rights, as enacted in our copyright laws, have not included a general right to be recognized as the author of one's writings. Yet, the interest in being identified with one's work is fundamental, whatever the conception of the philosophical or policy basis for copyright. The basic fairness of giving credit where it is due advances both the author-regarding and the public regarding aspects of copyright.

Most national copyright laws guarantee the right of attribution (or “paternity”); the leading international copyright …

Copyright And Good Faith Purchasers, Shyamkrishna Balganesh

Faculty Scholarship

Good faith purchasers for value – individuals who unknowingly and in good faith purchase property from a seller whose own actions in obtaining the property are of questionable legality – have long obtained special protection under the common law. Despite the seller’s own actions being tainted, these purchasers obtain valid title and are free to transfer the property without restriction. Modern copyright law, however, does just the opposite. Individuals who unknowingly, and in good faith, purchase property embodying an unauthorized copy of a protected work are altogether precluded from subsequently alienating such property without running afoul of copyright’s distribution right. …

The End Of Ownership: Personal Property In The Digital Economy, Aaron Perzanowski, Jason Schultz

Books

An argument for retaining the notion of personal property in the products we “buy” in the digital marketplace.

The open access edition of this book was made possible by generous funding from Arcadia – a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin.

If you buy a book at the bookstore, you own it. You can take it home, scribble in the margins, put in on the shelf, lend it to a friend, sell it at a garage sale. But is the same thing true for the ebooks or other digital goods you buy? Retailers and copyright holders argue that …

Government As Owner Of Intellectual Property? Considerations For Public Welfare In The Era Of Big Data, Ruth L. Okediji

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Open government data policies have become a significant part of innovation strategies in many countries, allowing access, use and re-use of government data to improve government transparency, foster civic engagement, and expand opportunities for the creation of new products and services. Rarely, however, do open data policies address intellectual property rights that may arise from free access to government data. Ownership of knowledge goods created from big data is governed by the default rules of intellectual property laws which typically vest ownership in the creator/inventor. By allowing, and in some cases actively encouraging, private capture of the downstream goods created …

From Incentive To Commodity To Asset: How International Law Is Reconceptualizing Intellectual Property, Rochelle Dreyfuss, Susy Frankel

Michigan Journal of International Law

The intellectual property landscape is changing. As Jerry Reichman once observed, intellectual property rights were islands in a sea of the public domain until domestic laws expanded to include such “innovations” as business methods, software, scents, and sounds and turned the public domain into a pond surrounded by a continent of rights. Reichman spoke towards the end of the 20th century, and whatever problems accompanied this change, in truth (to paraphrase Voltaire’s view of the Holy Roman Empire), the concept of “intellectual property rights” was predominantly about neither “property” nor “rights” (nor was it always “intellectual”). Rather, copyright, patent, and …

Parody And Fair Markets, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

In December 2011, the UK Intellectual Property Office commissioned the Centre for Intellectual Property Policy and Management at Bournemouth University to research the effects of parody on copyrighted works. Do parodies harm the market for the underlying work? How might we measure the economic effects of parody, as incentive depressors or engines?

UK copyright law does not contain an exception specifically covering parodies. The authors of the study perceive the UK copyright law as one of the most restrictive in seven jurisdictions surveyed (US, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Netherlands, UK) with regard to parodies. By commissioning this research, the UK …

Walk A Mile In The Shoes Of A Copyright Troll: Analyzing And Overcoming The Joinder Issue In Bittorrent Lawsuits, Kristina Unanyan

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

This Comment analyzes the issues surrounding joinder of copyright infringers who use BitTorrent, explores how joinder can be used and limited to create a more viable solution for copyright holders and consumers, as well as, supplements the sparse regulations that encompass joinder to create a rule that accommodates this technological era. Part II explains Copyright Law and the procedural aspects of a copyright infringement suit and joinder of defendants. Part III delves into the history of peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing lawsuits and provides an illustration of where case law rests today regarding P2P networks. Part IV describes the BitTorrent network and …

Avoiding The Next Napster: Copyright Infringement And Investor Liability In The Age Of User Generated Content, Truan Savage

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Rapid developments in digital technology over the past quarter century have made it easier than ever for people to create and instantly share content. These developments have served as the basis for countless innovations and have spawned some of today’s largest and most profitable companies. As content creation and distribution continues to evolve, businesses seek new ways to profit from these technological innovations. But while businesses continue to develop around new methods of content distribution, the law of copyright, which generally aims to encourage the creation of content, has been slow to adapt. This era of modern technological innovation thus …

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. …

Sherlock Holmes And The Case Of The Lucrative Fandom: Recognizing The Economic Power Of Fanworks And Reimagining Fair Use In Copyright, Stacey M. Lantagne

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Fan culture, in the form of fan-created works like fanfiction, fanart, and fanvids, is often associated with the Internet. However, fandom has existed for as long as stories have been told. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories inspired a passionate fandom long before the age of the Internet. Despite their persistence, fanworks have long existed in a gray area of copyright law. Determining if any given fanwork is infringing requires a fair use analysis. Although these analyses pay lip service to a requirement of aesthetic neutrality, they tend to become bogged down by unarticulated artistic judgments that hinge on …

Silent Similarity, Jessica D. Litman

Articles

From 1909 to 1930, U.S. courts grappled with claims by authors of prose works claiming that works in a new art form—silent movies—had infringed their copyrights. These cases laid the groundwork for much of modern copyright law, from their broad expansion of the reproduction right, to their puzzled grappling with the question how to compare works in dissimilar media, to their confusion over what sort of evidence should be relevant to show copyrightability, copying and infringement. Some of those cases—in particular, Nichols v. Universal Pictures—are canonical today. They are not, however, well-understood. In particular, the problem at the heart of …

Comment With The Copyright Office Regarding A Proposed Exemption Under 17 U.S.C. Section 1201 For Software Security Research (Class 25), Candice Hoke

Law Faculty Reports and Comments

Professor Candice Hoke, Cleveland State University, and others (Douglas W. Jones, University of Iowa; Professor Deirdre Mulligan, University of California, Berkeley; Professor Vern Paxson, University of California, Berkeley;Professor Pamela Samuelson, University of California, Berkeley; Bruce Schneier Erik Stallman, Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT); comment addressing Proposed Class 25: Software Security Research and an exemption for software security research in order to promote the active research and testing efforts necessary to keep pace with evolving cybersecurity risks. Software and related access controls are increasingly embedded in a wide range of systems, from consumer goods to medical devices to infrastructure to …

British Invasion: Importing The United Kingdom's Orphan Works Solution To United States Copyright Law, Abigail Bunce

Northwestern University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Private International Law Aspects Of Authors' Contracts: The Dutch And French Examples, Jane C. Ginsburg, Pierre Sirinelli

Faculty Scholarship

Copyright generally vests in the author, the human creator of the work. But because, at least until recently, most authors have been ill-equipped to commercialize and disseminate their works on their own, the author has granted rights to intermediaries to market her works. Since most authors are the weaker parties to publishing, production, or distribution contracts, the resulting deal may favor the interests of the intermediary to the detriment of the author’s interests. Many national copyright laws have introduced a variety of corrective measures, from the very first copyright act, the 1710 British Statute of Anne, which instituted the author’s …

Equity's Unstated Domain: The Role Of Equity In Shaping Copyright Law, Shyamkrishna Balganesh, Gideon Parchomovsky

Faculty Scholarship

As used today, the term “equity” connotes a variety of related, but nonetheless distinct, ideas. In most contexts, equity refers to the body of rules and doctrines that emerged in parallel with the common law, and which merged with the common law by the late nineteenth century. At a purely conceptual level, some trace the term back to Aristotle’s notion of epieikeia, or the process of infusing the law with sufficient flexibility to avoid injustice. Lastly, at a largely practical level, a few treat equity as synonymous with a set of remedies that courts can authorize, all of which …

Robots, Pirates, And The Rise Of The Automated Takedown Regime: Using The Dmca To Fight Piracy And Protect End Users, Zoe Carpou

Kernochan Center for Law, Media, and the Arts

This very second, a battle between robots and pirates is being waged online. Pirates are stealing content from copyright holders and uploading it to various websites. Robots are crawling the Web, searching for pirated content. When a robot encounters pirated content, it is programmed to attack — either by reporting back to the copyright holder, or by going straight to the source and requesting that the material be removed. Sometimes the pirates fight back, re-posting the content online soon after it is taken down or posting newly infringing content. The cycle continues, and the battle rages on.

Generally speaking, “robots” …

Campbell At 21/Sony At 31, Jessica D. Litman

Articles

When copyright lawyers gather to discuss fair use, the most common refrain is its alarming expansion. Their distress about fair use’s enlarged footprint seems completely untethered from any appreciation of the remarkable increase in exclusive copyright rights. In the nearly forty years since Congress enacted the 1976 copyright act, the rights of copyright owners have expanded markedly. Copyright owners’ demands for further expansion continue unabated. Meanwhile, they raise strident objections to proposals to add new privileges and exceptions to the statute to shelter non-infringing uses that might be implicated by their expanded rights. Copyright owners have used the resulting uncertainty …