Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

The State Of Internet Radio In 2010, Adam Deutsch

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Recognizing Virtual Property Rights, It's About Time, John S. Chao

Student Works

No abstract provided.

An Exploratory Investigation Of The Practice Of Planned Unit Development And Its Theoretical Implementation In The “Second Life” Virtual Community, Ryan M. Jennings

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Following The Direction Of Traffix: Trade Dress Law And Functionality Revisited, Amy B. Cohen

Faculty Scholarship

For much of American history, in order to promote competition among the producers of useful products, the law did not grant protection to the design of such products unless the design met the demanding requirements for patent or copyright protection. In the 1980s, an expansion of trade dress law resulted in protection of product designs, with the courts relying primarily on the functionality doctrine to preserve the interest in competition. The functionality doctrine, however, riddled by ambiguity and conflicting interpretations, was not effective in preventing overly broad protection of the designs of useful products. As a result, more and more …

Traditional Knowlege: Is Perpetual Protection A Good Idea?, J. Janewa Oseitutu

Faculty Publications

Most of the international dialogue about traditional knowledge has taken place within the context of an intellectual property framework with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) as the primary facilitator of the discussion. Following more than a decade of dialogue, the WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (WIPO IGC) has been given until the Fall of 2011 to come up with something concrete. Due to the intersection between traditional knowledge and intellectual property, the resulting text is likely to be a significant development for international intellectual property law.

Developing countries have long advocated …

The Microsoft Chronicles, Rudolph J.R. Peritz

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

The 1909 Copyright Act In International Context, Daniel J. Gervais

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The passage of the 1909 U.S. Copyright Act was embedded in a significant period of evolution for international copyright law. Just a year before, the Berne Convention had been revised for the second time. This Berlin (1908) Act of the Convention in remembered in particular for the introduction of a broad prohibition against formalities concerning the "exercise and enjoyment" of copyright. 1909 was also just one year before a new copyright bill was brought before the Brit-ish Parliament. This Copyright Act, finally adopted in December 1911 and which entered into force in July 1, 1912, greatly influenced laws in many …

What Carrier Doesn't Address, Philip J. Weiser

Publications

No abstract provided.

Beyond Fair Use, Gideon Parchomovsky, Philip J. Weiser

Publications

For centuries, the fair use doctrine has been the main--if not the exclusive--bastion of user rights. Originating in the English courts of equity, the doctrine permitted users, under appropriate circumstances, to employ copyrighted content without the rightsholder's consent. In the current digital media environment, however, the uncertainty that shrouds fair use and the proliferation of technological protection measures undermine the doctrine and its role in copyright policy. Notably, the enactment of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which prohibits the circumvention of technological protection measures even for fair use purposes, has diminished the ability of fair use to counterbalance a copyright …

Privilege And Property: Essays On The History Of Copyright, Ronan Deazley, Martin Kretschmer, Lionel Bently

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Includes sixteen essays on the origins of copyright.

First paragraph:

What is Copyright History?

History has normative force. There was no history of colonialism, gender, fashion or crime until there were contemporary demands to explain and justify certain values. During much of the twentieth century, ‘copyright’ history (the history of legal, particularly proprietary, mechanisms for the regulation of the reproduction and distribution of cultural products – as opposed to the history of art, literature, music, or the history of publishers and art-sellers) was not thought of as a coherent, or even necessary field of inquiry. It was a pursuit of …

The Grammar Of Trademarks, Laura A. Heymann

Faculty Publications

How do people talk when they talk about trademarks? If trademarks have
become, as linguist Geoffrey Nunberg suggests, our “new global tongue,”
perhaps we should pay greater attention to the grammar we use when we
talk about them. We use “Coke” to refer to the Coca-Cola beverage in the
North, and “coke” to refer to any kind of soda in the South, yet we still
manage to get the drinks we desire. We use trademarks as verbs—we
“xerox” a document or “tivo” a television program—without losing sight
of the fact that “Xerox” and “TiVo” are brands of particular products.
We …

Book Review Of Universities And Copyright Collecting Societies, Benjamin J. Keele

Library Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

No Confusion Here: Proposing A New Paradigm For The Litigation Of Keyword Advertising Trademark Infringement Cases, Rachel R. Friedman

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Internet search engines such as Google and Yahoo! earn a majority of their profit from selling advertisements to appear next to search results. Google's coveted advertising space, however, causes nightmares for trademark holders when their trademarks are auctioned by Google to competitors as keywords to trigger the competitors' advertisements when the trademark is used as a search term. Advertisers strategically bid on trademarks of competitors to ensure that their ads appear whenever the trademark is used as a search term, instead of the advertisements of the trademark holder. For example, Nike could bid on the trademark for "Adidas," with the …

Guerrilla Radio: Has The Time Come For A Full Performance Right In Sound Recordings?, Lauren E. Kilgore

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Musicians and songwriters occupy a unique place in society as purveyors of composition and expression that impart an intangible benefit to society. Understanding the value of "Science and useful Arts," the Founders provided Constitutional protection for individuals spending time, money, and energy pursuing creative endeavors. Music defines generations and pivotal moments in history, and has rightfully taken its place at the forefront of human expression. When music began reaching the masses in the early twentieth century, both record labels and radio, even in its infancy, helped propel artists to the national spotlight. Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, and Pearl Jam all …

An "Absence Of Meaningful Appellate Review": Juries And Patent Obviousness, Theresa Weisenberger

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The rise in the number of patent infringement trials heard by juries has brought criticisms of the jury's expansive role to the forefront of patent law commentary. Under current Federal Circuit practice, the jury is permitted to deliver a verdict on patent obviousness. Especially in light of the 2007 Supreme Court decision KSR International Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., the role of the jury in obviousness determinations has come under particular scrutiny. This Note examines the effect of the jury's expansive role in obviousness determinations on appellate review of these verdicts. It begins by examining the two conflicting views of the …

Transformative Use And Cognizable Harm, Thomas F. Cotter

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

In recent years, the question of whether the unauthorized use of a copyrighted work is "transformative" has become a dominant consideration in determining whether the use is fair or unfair. As critics have pointed out, however, this emphasis on transformative use is both underinclusive and indeterminate of the range of uses that fall within the scope of the fair use privilege. Worse yet, efforts to define or apply the concept of transformative use, or to distinguish fair transformative uses from transformative uses that infringe the copyright owner's exclusive right to prepare derivative works, often serve only to illuminate the concept's …

Copyright, Derivative Works, And The Economics Of Complements, Glynn S. Lunney, Jr.

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

From an economic perspective, copyright is irrational. In defining the scope of a copyright owner's exclusive rights, it treats situations that have similar economic consequences differently, as infringement in one case and not in the other, and situations that have radically different economic consequences similarly. This essay explores such area in which copyright exhibits economic irrationality: Copyright's treatment of complements. Where a lower price on a substitute reduces demand for the original, a lower price on a complement increases it. So defined, copyright addresses whether a copyright owner will control three different types of complements: (i) complementary products, such as …

A Preliminary First Amendment Analysis Of Legislation Treating News Aggregation As Copyright Infringement, Alfred C. Yen

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The newspaper industry has recently experienced economic difficulty. Profits have declined because fewer people read printed versions of newspapers, preferring instead to get their news through so-called "news aggregators" who compile newspaper headlines and provide links to stories posted on newspaper websites. This harms newspaper revenue because news aggregators collect advertising revenue that newspapers used to enjoy.

Some have responded to this problem by advocating the use of copyright to give newspapers the ability to control the use of their stories and headlines by news aggregators. This proposal is controversial, for news aggregators often do not commit copyright infringement. Accordingly, …

A Generation Of Racketeers? Eliminating Civil Rico Liability For Copyright Infringement, Julie L. Ross

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

This article addresses questions raised in recent years by the increasingly severe penalties for copyright infringement, focusing on potential civil RICO liability as illustrated by a hypothetical peer-to-peer file-sharing example. Because civil litigation has been, by a wide margin, the favored means for pursuing copyright violators, the criminal copyright infringement statute remains largely untested, and the few cases that address its provisions offer conflicting interpretations. Now that RICO penalties are available in civil copyright infringement cases, courts faced with resolving the ambiguities in the application of the criminal copyright infringement provisions will need to reconcile divergent policies. To effectuate its …

The Copyright Principles Project: Directions For Reform, Jessica D. Litman, Pamela Samuelson, The Copyright Principles Project

Articles

Copyright law performs a number of important functions. It facilitates public access to knowledge and a wide range of uses of creative works of authorship, and, in so doing, it helps educate our populace, enrich our culture, and promote free speech, free expression, and democratic values. It provides opportunities for rights holders to recoup investments in creating and disseminating their works and to enjoy the fruits of whatever success arises from the public's uses of their works. In the process, copyright also plays a role in regulating new technologies and services through which creative works may be accessed. A well-functioning …