Internet Law Commons^™

Pinterest And Copyright's Safe Harbors For Internet Providers, Michael W. Carroll

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Has the time come to substantially revise the Copyright Act to better adapt the law to the ever-evolving digital environment? A number of influential sources appear to think so. If their initiatives gain momentum, it will be important to consider lessons learned from the first such effort fifteen years ago when Congress made far-reaching changes to copyright law by extending the term of copyright for twenty years and by enacting a package of reform proposals known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”). This Article intertwines the story of one important provision of the DMCA - safe harbors for Internet …

Unauthorized Televised Debate Footage In Political Campaign Advertising: Fair Use And The Dmca, Susan Park

Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Protection Of Intellectual Property Rights In Computers And Computer Programs: Recent Developments , Alan C. Rose

Pepperdine Law Review

The following article examines the protection offered to computers and computer programs, under the various applicable patent, copyright and trade secret laws. Concerning patent protection; the author discusses the history and current status of the patent laws, and analyzes in detail the landmark case of Diamond v. Diehr. Discussed also is an analysis of copyright protection for computer programs, offered by the 1980 amendments to section 117 of the 1976 Copyright Act; which paved the way for the increased protection.

An Intersystemic View Of Intellectual Property And Free Speech, Mark Bartholomew, John Tehranian

Journal Articles

Intellectual property regimes operate in the shadow of the First Amendment. By deeming a particular activity as infringing, the law of copyright, trademark, and the right of publicity all limit communication. As a result, judges and lawmakers must delicately balance intellectual property rights with expressive freedoms. Interestingly, each intellectual property regime strikes the balance between ownership rights and free speech in a dramatically different way. Despite a large volume of scholarship on intellectual property rights and free speech considerations, this Article represents the first systematic effort to detail, analyze, and explain the divergent evolution of expression-based defenses in copyright, trademark, …

Do Students Turn Over Their Rights When They Turn In Their Papers? A Case Study Of Turnitin.Com, Stephen Sharon

Touro Law Review

Turnitin is a rapidly growing online anti-plagiarism service subscribed to by thousands of schools in the United States. Though the pursuit of honesty and integrity are at the heart of our academic institutions and the Turnitin anti-plagiarism service, there is a fatal flaw in its execution. This comment examines the copyright and fair use arguments presented by four Virginia students asserting that Turnitin violated their intellectual property rights. This comment goes beyond the facts of the four Virginia students to explore the root issues of a service that collects and distributes the copyrighted works submitted to it by hundreds of …

Beware Of The Highwayman On The Information Superhighway: A Balanced Proposal To Protect Copyrights Within The National Information Infrastructure, Chandra Gehri Spencer

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Internet-Based Fans: Why The Entertainment Industries Cannot Depend On Traditional Copyright Protections , Thomas C. Inkel

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Combating Online Trademark And Copyright Infringement: Ice And Doj Domain Name Seizures New Tools In The Government’S Efforts To Combat Online Ip Infringement, Tanya Dunbar

Pace Intellectual Property, Sports & Entertainment Law Forum

The ICE seizures and proposed legislations to codify ICE-style seizures have led many to question the legitimacy of ICE’s seizures and decry the bills as censorship. Tanya Dunbar’s article explores the reasons for the government’s actions, the seizure mechanism the government employs, and the controversy surrounding domain name seizures. Where possible, the Ms. Dunbar offers solutions to some of the controversial issues that may arise.

Open Connectivity, Open Data: Two Dimensions Of The Freedom To Seek, Receive And Impart Information In The New Zealand Bill Of Rights, Jonathon Penney

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Recently, ideas about "rights" to Internet access or connectivity have received growing recognition from governments, legal institutions, and other political actors in several countries, including New Zealand Despite this emerging political and legal recognition, there are few, if any, systematic studies exploring such ideas. This paper aims to change this. First, it offers a theoretical exploration of the idea of a "right" to Internet access, including the diferent versions of such rights talk. Secondly, it examines whether there is any legal basis for such rights claims in New Zealand and ultimately argues that section 14 of the New Zealand Bill …

Open Connectivity, Open Data: Two Dimensions Of The Freedom To Seek, Receive And Impart Information In The New Zealand Bill Of Rights, Jonathon Penney

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Recently, ideas about "rights" to Internet access or connectivity have received growing recognition from governments, legal institutions, and other political actors in several countries, including New Zealand Despite this emerging political and legal recognition, there are few, if any, systematic studies exploring such ideas. This paper aims to change this. First, it offers a theoretical exploration of the idea of a "right" to Internet access, including the diferent versions of such rights talk. Secondly, it examines whether there is any legal basis for such rights claims in New Zealand and ultimately argues that section 14 of the New Zealand Bill …

Mge Ups Systems, Inc. V. Ge Consumer & Industrial, Inc., Alexander Hill

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Book Review: William F. Patry, How To Fix Copyright, Graham Reynolds

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

In How to Fix Copyright, William F. Patry, one of America’s leading experts on copyright, calls for a “top-to-bottom, systemic overhaul” of copyright laws. For a Canadian readership in the midst of our own process of copyright reform, such a call to action is both timely and relevant.

The Future Of Cybertravel: Legal Implications Of The Evasion Of Geolocation, Marketa Trimble

Scholarly Works

Although the Internet is valued by many of its supporters particularly because it both defies and defeats physical borders, these important attributes are now being exposed to attempts by both governments and private entities to impose territorial limits through blocking or permitting access to content by Internet users based on their geographical location—a territorial partitioning of the Internet. One of these attempts, for example, is the recent Stop Online Piracy Act (“SOPA”) proposal in the United States. This article, as opposed to earlier literature on the topic discussing the possible virtues and methods of erecting borders in cyberspace, focuses on …

Speaking Of Moral Rights: A Conversation Between Eva E. Subotnik And Jane C. Ginsburg, Jane C. Ginsburg, Eva E. Subotnik

Faculty Scholarship

A transcribed conversation about moral rights in the digital age — in respect of some of the legal and technological developments that have occurred since Professor Jane Ginsburg's 2001 essay, Have Moral Rights Come of (Digital) Age in the United States?, 19 Cardozo Arts & Ent. L. J. 9 (2001).

Cyberspace, Exceptionalism, And Innocent Copyright Infringement, Jacqueline D. Lipton

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Direct copyright infringement attracts strict liability. However, as a theoretical matter, it is not necessarily clear why. Legislatures and courts have typically imposed strict liability where: (a) a defendant has notice of a plaintiff's rights, particularly where those rights involve a property interest; (b) a mens rea requirement on the part of the defendant would create an untenable burden on the plaintiff; (c) it is easier for the defendant to avoid harming the plaintiff than it is for the plaintiff to avoid the harm; or, (d) it is more administratively or economically efficient for the defendant to bear the risk …

Fulfilling The Copyright Social Justice Promise: Digitizing Textual Information, Lateef Mtima, Steven D. Jamar

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Orphan Works And The Google Book Search Settlement: An International Perspective, Bernard Lang

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

D Is For Digitize: An Introduction, James Grimmelmann

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Google Book Settlement And The Fair Use Counterfactual, Matthew Sag

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Downstream Copyright Infringers, Yvette Joy Liebesman

All Faculty Scholarship

The advent of on-line music sales has been a boon to the recording industry as well as for musicians and the general public. Previously unknown artists have found new avenues to showcase their work, and consumers have easy access to an enormous variety of musical genres.

Yet an unintended consequence of the ability to sell songs through internet downloads is a novel, and until now, unnoticed way to infringe on copyrights - which, unless remedied, could lead to new classes of defendants never contemplated or desired to be ensnared in the Copyright Act’s protections for artists, musicians and authors. Unlike …

Twittering Away The Right Of Publicity: Personality Rights And Celebrity Impersonation On Social Networking Websites, Andrew M. Jung

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Within the past couple of years, social networking websites have become an immensely popular destination for people from all walks of life. Websites like Facebook and Twitter now count tens of millions of worldwide users, including world leaders and a number of celebrities. Eventually, users realized that social networking websites lent themselves to the quick and easy impersonation of celebrities through the creation of fake social networking accounts, often as a form of parody. One subject of such impersonation was professional baseball manager Tony La Russa, who took the then-unprecedented step of suing his impersonators and Twitter over the incident. …

Making Virtual Copyright Work, Matthew R. Farley

Law Student Publications

This Article proposes measures that attempt to strike the balance between creation and access. The virtual-world community is not likely to persevere with the little copyright protection it currently enjoys. Creativity will dwindle and the rich, energetic settings that make virtual worlds so attractive to businesses and entertainers will follow suit. At the same time, because much of the creativity in virtual worlds is derivative in nature, virtual creators are also unlikely to benefit from strong copyright protections. Therefore, current interpretation of copyright law must be revisited and revised before applying it to virtual worlds. Part I details virtual worlds …

Space Age Love Song: The Mix Tape In A Digital Universe, Megan M. Carpenter

Nevada Law Journal

Mix tapes are the classic, iconic form of music sharing. Mix tape creators of the past believed they were making a piece of art larger than the sum of its parts. And even in the face of technological development so rapid and far-reaching as to remove the literal “tape” from “mix tape,” there are nonetheless modern incarnations that crop up on a regular basis, from mix CDs to mix-sharing websites. The technology is different, but the song remains the same.

Canada's Current Position With Respect To Sound Marks Registration: A Need For Change?, Marie-Jeanne Provost

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

This paper analyses and criticizes Canada’s position on sound marks registration in order to recommend the ways in which Canadian policy-makers could further act in order to advance this area of law. The first part of this paper exposes the fundamental concepts of trade-marks as they are necessary to the comprehension of the problems surrounding the registration of sound marks. In the second part, legal considerations associated with the registration of sound marks are discussed. More specifically, the visual requirement, the issue of “use,” the concept of distinctiveness and the question of overlap with copyright are assessed. In the third …

Libraries, Digital Content, And Copyright, Laura N. Gasaway

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Libraries use, acquire, create and host generate digital content. They digitize their existing collections of works such as letters, diaries and manuscripts and post them on library websites. Increasingly, libraries are utilizing digital technology to preserve library works which may or may not be made available to the public. Libraries also create, manage and host user generated content such as posts on discussion boards, blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, social bookmarking, tagging, and social networks. Libraries use user generated content for internal library purposes, such as displays and events and for teaching. Further, libraries often are asked to assist users who …

The Statute Of Anne: Today And Tomorrow, Peter Jaszi, Craig Joyce, Marshall A. Leaffer, Tyler Trent Ochoa

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This essay provides the epilogue to the University of Houston’s Institute for Intellectual Property & Information Law’s 2010 National Conference, “The ©©© Conference: Celebrating Copyright’s tri-Centennial,” in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The conference focused on the Statute of Anne, the first copyright statute ever, anywhere, enacted by the British Parliament in 1710.

Copyright law in the United States, the lineal descendant of the Statute of Anne, has managed to negotiate a course between over-protecting and under-protecting copyrighted matter, and to strike at least a rough balance between the social interest in securing capital investment, on the one hand, and encouraging …

The Evolution Of Copyright Law In The Arts, Kevin Liftig

Honors Scholar Theses

As digital storage of intellectual goods such as literature and music has become widespread, the duplication and unlicensed distribution of these goods has become a frequent source of legal contention. When technology for production and replication of intellectual goods advanced, there were disputes concerning the rights to produce and duplicate these works. As new technologies have made copies of intellectual goods more accessible, legal institutions have largely moved to protect the rights of ownership of ideas through copyright laws. This paper will examine key changes in the technology that affect intellectual property, and the responses that legal institutions have made …

Coding Privacy, Lilian Edwards

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Lawrence Lessig famously and usefully argues that cyberspace is regulated not just by law but also by norms, markets and architecture or "code." His insightful work might also lead the unwary to conclude, however, that code is inherently anti-privacy, and thus that an increasingly digital world must therefore also be increasingly devoid of privacy. This paper argues briefly that since technology is a neutral tool, code can be designed as much to fight for privacy as against it, and that what matters now is to look at what incentivizes the creation of pro- rather than anti-privacy code in the mainstream …

Peer-To-Peering Beyond The Horizon: Can A P2p Network Avoid Liability By Adapting Its Technological Structure?, Matthew G. Minder

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Peer-to-peer networks are often used to infringe copyrights, but they also serve some legitimate purposes consistent with copyright law. In attempting to find a satisfactor solution, this note develops and analyzes two models that future peer-to-peer networks could employ to attempt to avoid liability for copyright infringement. The note then analyzes the law, applies the two models to the relevant legal tests, and analyzes whether a peer-to-peer network operating on each model could avoid liability for copyright infringement. It concludes that modifying their technological structure may help peer-to-peer networks avoid liability, but that some risks remain.

Copyright, Trademark And Secondary Liability After Grokster, Mark Bartholomew

Journal Articles

Even though secondary infringement doctrine in both copyright and trademark stems from the same common law starting points, the doctrines have moved in very different directions, particularly in the last decade. As copyright litigants expanded their litigation strategy to include online intermediaries, secondary copyright liability was stretched to encompass a wider array of defendants with increasingly tangential relationships to the direct infringer. Meanwhile, even though similar online threats jeopardized the ability of trademark holders to safeguard their brands' goodwill, courts refused to implement a similar expansion for secondary trademark liability. Although courts are aware of this doctrinal double standard, they …