Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act – In Need Of A Major Software Update, Sabrina Ortega

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) unfairly discriminates against copyright holders by allowing online service providers to employ inadequate and outdated takedown protocols of copyright infringement. These protocols promote piracy resulting in illegal advertisement revenue streams. Congress must reform the DMCA to ensure online service providers are held properly accountable when copyright infringement occurs on their platforms. Specifically, the DMCA’s existing takedown protocols should be reformed to ensure online service providers cannot benefit from issues associated with advertisements attached to posts containing infringing material. This Note examines the pertinent sections of the DMCA; relevant caselaw concerning the DMCA, online service …

Protecting Producers’ Copyrights: A Proposal For Group Registration Of Non-Sample-Based Musical Beats, Matthew Roomberg

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

“Beats” are the instrumental tracks that form the foundation of hip-hop, pop, and EDM songs. The authors who create them, often called producers or beatmakers, make hundreds or thousands of new distinct beats each year to raise their chance of attaining commercial success. But wholesale pirating of original beats has become rampant, and authors face significant obstacles in the search for remedies. One such obstacle is the great difficulty and expense of registering the copyrights associated with hundreds or thousands of original beats.

Registration with the U.S. Copyright Office is a critical step to obtaining most of the remedies available …

Are Chatgpt And Other Similar Systems The Modern Lernaean Hydras Of Ai?, Dimitrios Ioannidis, Esq., Dr. Jeremy Kepner, Dr. Andrew Bowne, Lt. Col., Usaf, Harriet S. Bryant

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

The rise of Generative Artificial Intelligence systems (“AI systems”) has created unprecedented social engagement. AI code generation systems provide responses (output) to questions or requests by accessing the vast library of open-source code created by developers over the past few decades. However, they do so by allegedly stealing the open-source code stored in virtual libraries, known as repositories. This Article focuses on how this happens and whether there is a solution that protects innovation and avoids years of litigation. We also touch upon the array of issues raised by the relationship between AI and copyright. Looking ahead, we propose the …

The Fashion Workers Act: Closing The Regulatory Loophole In The New York Fashion Industry, Kayleigh Ristuben

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

The fashion industry in New York has largely been unregulated due to a loophole in current law. This has allowed fashion models to face difficulties that would otherwise be addressed by laws regulating other occupations within the entertainment industry. The New York state senate has introduced the Fashion Workers Act which is aimed at addressing these issues and closing the regulatory loophole. This Note analyzes the existing regulatory framework in both New York and California to compare them with the proposed bill. It then uses legislative history from past regulatory attempts to anticipate and address potential industry pushback while offering …

Know-How, Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

While know-how licenses around the world often define know-how as encompassing both secret and non-secret information, the TTBER exemption only covers know-how while it remains secret, irrespective of how it may be defined in the underlying agreement. This seeming discrepancy appears to exist because the term ‘know-how’ functions in the TTBER as a stand-in for the term ‘trade secret’, a form of IP that was not generally recognized under this name in the EU until the adoption in 2016 of the European Trade Secrecy Directive, No. 2016/943. As a result, licenses of non-secret know-how under Article 101 do not appear …

Ransomware Groups On Notice: U.S. Cyber Operation Against Revil Is Permissible Under International Law, Justin Singh

American University International Law Review

The continued increase in the use of ransomware by cyber criminals has had a costly impact on businesses and organizations around the world. Ransomware groups continue to initiate attacks on businesses and organizations, and states have become increasingly concerned over the potential impact it may have on their critical infrastructure and economies. The United States’ recent acknowledgement of cyber operations against ransomware groups highlights the seriousness of the issue and exposes areas of international law that are complicated when applied to cyber operations against these groups. This Comment explores the relevant international law as it applies to the United States …

Copyright Infringement And Enforcement In Ghana: A Comparative Study, Doreen Adoma Agyei

SJD Dissertations

Copyright infringement is a widespread problem in developed and developing nations and particularly concerning in Ghana. Many talented creators in Ghana have a strong desire to produce original creative works and are enthusiastic about committing themselves to this pursuit. Additionally, many more aspire to pursue these endeavours into professional careers. However, upon releasing their works, they are unfortunately immediately faced with infringements in nearly all copyright industries. These violations have become so common that they have unfairly placed rightsholders’ original works in competition with the infringers. Within this context, many talented creators, mostly self-funded, lack the incentive to pursue their …

Yu V. Apple – The Abstract Idea Conundrum: It’S Time To Either Adopt The Dictionary Definitions Or Abandon The Unworkable Abstract Idea Doctrine, 56 Uic L. Rev. 301 (2023), Raguraman Kumaresan

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Research Agenda For Standards-Essential Patents, Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

This Chapter discusses the current state of legal, economic and policy research on standards-essential patents (SEPs) and fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) licensing of SEPs, and recommends additional research directions for the future. Areas for future research include the investigation of market adoption of standardized products subject to FRAND licensing and available on a royalty-free basis, measurement of various characteristics of SEPs including disclosure, validity, essentiality and transfer, the evolution of SDO and consortia patent policies, SEP licensing behavior, both by SEP holders and product manufacturers, SEP and FRAND disputes and litigation, including arbitration, and competition among patent pools for …

Trade Secret, Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

A trade secret is information that has commercial value to an organization due to its secrecy, is not known outside of the organization, and the continuing secrecy of which the organization has taken reasonable measures to protect. Trade secrets may include information embodied in documents, electronic records, products and other media, as well as information known to individuals. The EU and some other jurisdictions exclude from the definition of trade secrets trivial information or experience/skills gained by employees during the normal course of their employment and information that is generally known among, or is readily accessible to, persons within the …

Constitutional Confidentiality, Natalie Ram, Jorge L. Contreras, Laura M. Beskow, Leslie E. Wolf

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Federal Certificates of Confidentiality protect sensitive information about human research subjects from disclosure and use in judicial, administrative, and legislative proceedings at both the state and federal levels. While Certificates originally covered sensitive information collected in research about drug addiction use when they were authorized by Congress in the 1970s, today they extend to virtually all personal information gathered by biomedical research studies. The broad reach of Certificates, coupled with their power to override state subpoenas and warrants issued in the context of law enforcement, abortion regulation, and other police powers reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment, beg …

Trademark Tarnishmyths, Jake Linford, Justin Sevier, Allyson Willis

Scholarly Publications

Trademark law protects famous marks from dilution by tarnishment, defined by statute as use likely to "harm the reputation of the famous mark." Tarnishing uses are typically those that connect a mark with disreputable goods or topics, like sex or drugs. Mark owners worry that consumers will not purchase products connected with sexually explicit or drug-related materials, and courts often presume the same. If those associations likely cause consumers to withhold custom or dissipate goodwill consumers have invested in the mark, anti-tarnishment protection might be justified. But if that harm is more mythic than real, the law penalizing tarnishing use …

Masthead

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

No abstract provided.

Investigating Name, Image, And Likeness Through Project-Based Learning, Brendan O'Hallarn, Craig A. Morehead, Michelle Carpenter, Jay O'Toole

Communication & Theatre Arts Faculty Publications

The 2021 Supreme Court ruling granting college athletes the right to monetize their name, image, and likeness (NIL) was greeted in equal measure by enthusiasm and confusion by college athletes and the institutions for which they compete. This paper suggests an approach whereby college classes can provide guidance for college athletes to navigate the nascent, evolving NIL rules and provide an opportunity for current, relevant project-based learning. The Old Dominion University Name, Image, and Likeness Knowledge Hub had limitations in its deliverable—a guide for college athletes seeking to leverage their NIL rights—but it represents a novel learning opportunity because of …

Books Without Barriers: A Practical Guide To Inclusive Publishing, Julie Ganner, Agata Mrva-Montoya, Maryanne Park, Kayt Duncan

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Introduction

The accessibility of a publication depends on how suitable and easily adaptable it is to the different ways in which people read. Publications that meet the needs of people with print disability are inclusive because they offer an equitable reading experience to all readers, irrespective of how the person accesses the content.

Print disability¹ occurs as a result of the interaction between people living with temporary or permanent health conditions and the barriers to reading they may experience when content is made available in print form only. Print disability can be:

• visual (including blindness, low vision and medical …

United States Department Of Labor Scientific Integrity Policy

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

United States Department of Labor Scientific Integrity Policy

In Memorial - Dorothy Erstling Cukier, Lead Article Editor

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

One Small Step On Tiktok, One (Possibly) Giant Leap For The Dance Community: How Tiktok Spearheaded A Change In The Seemingly Stagnant Field Of Copyright Law, Sydney L. Solferino

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Should Using An Ai Text Generator To Produce Academic Writing Be Plagiarism?, Brian L. Frye, Chat Gpt

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

Author's Foreword: I “wrote” this article while taking a bath with a bottle of champagne, by submitting the questions in bold to ChatGPT and copying its responses. I did not bother providing citations for ChatGPT’s claims, because they would obviously be superfluous.

Editor-in-Chief's Foreword: In 2023, the question is unavoidable: when it comes to scholarship, and in our case, legal scholarship, what do we do about artificial intelligence (AI) like ChatGPT? Do we need to do anything? In the Comment that follows, author Brian L. Frye and ChatGPT tried to provide an answer to these questions. Actually, ChatGPT did most …

Generative And Ai Authored Artworks And Copyright Law, Michael D. Murray

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Generative art linked to non-fungible tokens (NFTs) is an extremely popular genre of art in the NFT universe. Many of the most famous NFT projects—CryptoPunks, Bored Ape Yacht Club, World of Women, Azuki, Chromie Squiggles, Clone X, and Moonbirds, just to name a few—involve generative art. But there is a potential copyrightability problem with generative art:

Under current United States copyright law, many examples of generative art might be held to be uncopyrightable.

Why does generative art fail in the copyrightability analysis? As discussed below, it is because the work might lack a human author. And at present, the U.S. …

Copyright Transformative Fair Use After Andy Warhol Foundation For The Visual Arts, Inc. V. Goldsmith, Michael D. Murray

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

On May 18, 2023, the United States Supreme Court entered its opinion in Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith. The Court examined the work of the renowned artist Andy Warhol (Warhol), posthumously represented by his eponymously named foundation, who had incorporated a significant portion of the visual elements from Lynn Goldsmith’s photograph of the deceased rock star Prince without Goldsmith’s permission. In a 7-2 opinion, the Court held that Warhol’s use of the Goldsmith photograph was not “transformative” and thus did not constitute fair use of the photographer’s work. This article will explain and analyze …

The Future Is Now: Copyright Protection For Works Created By Artificial Intelligence, Gary Myers

Faculty Publications

Creativity was once considered a primarily, if not exclusively, human endeavor. People create art, literature, and music, while machines handle mechanical tasks, like a typewriter or camera. The world has changed, and in the current year those changes are disrupting conventional ideas about authorship and creativity. Developments in the power and robustness of artificial intelligence ( or AI) have made it possible for a wide array of creative AI-generated works to be created. Early developments, such as IBM Deep Blue's mastery of the game of chess, were still somewhat mechanical in nature, as they were based on the computer analyzing …

Artificial Intelligence And Transformative Use After Warhol, Gary Myers

Faculty Publications

The Supreme Court's recent decision in Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith clarifies the scope of transformative use and the role of these uses in the fair use analysis. This important case has implications for a fair use analysis of artificial intelligence. This article evaluates the interaction between copyright law's fair use doctrine and typical sources and uses for artificial intelligence. In other words, the article will assess whether or not the use of copyrighted material to "train" AI programs-AI inputs-and the products of AI programs-AI outputs-are likely to found to be transformative in light of …

The Case Of The Missing Device Patents, Or: Why Device Patents Matter, Erika Lietzan, Kristina M. L. Acri, Evan Weidner

Faculty Publications

A company that earns premarket approval of its medical device is entitled to an extension of one patent claiming the device, to make up for some of the time it spent doing premarket research. Yet, surprisingly, a mere thirteen percent of those eligible for this extension (also known as patent term "restoration") ask for one. In contrast, most drug companies entitled to this same patent extension ask for one.

In this Article, we attribute the imbalance largely to differences between the two regulatory frameworks. In brief, because the FDA classifies and regulates devices based on what they do and how …

Against Integrity: A Feminist Theory Of Moral Rights, Creative Agency & Attribution, Carys Craig, Anupriya Dhonchak

All Papers

This Chapter explores insights that feminist theories can bring to the study and development of moral rights protections in copyright law. It begins by explaining why certain facets of conventional moral rights theory are ill-suited to—indeed inconsistent with—a feminist approach in both concept and effect. In particular, to the extent that strong moral rights of integrity and association limit dialogic engagement with, and transformation of, protected works, they risk suppressing critical and counter-hegemonic expression, and support an individualized and romanticized conception of the (patriarchal) author-figure. Employing alternative feminist conceptions of situated selfhood, relationality and dialogic authorship, the Chapter then explores …

The Sophistication Of Thrifting For Designer Goods: Trademark Law In The Secondhand Market, Deema K. Hasan

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

Consideration-Free, Implied-In-Fact Software Licensing Under Bitmanagement Software Gmbh V. United States, Ping-Hsun Chen

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Healthcare: Glaxosmithkline V. Teva's Effect On Modern-Day Pharmaceuticals As We Know Them, Carling Miller

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

U.S. Copyright Law, Statutory Damages, And Berne Convention Nationality, Gregory Gerard Greer

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

In Your Face: Whether Photographs Should Be Considered Biometric Information, Alessandra M. Conte

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.