Professor Folsom: Copyright

Copyright law is a critical issue for authors, librarians, publishers, and information vendors. It is also a complex area, with many shades of gray. Librarians continually need to seek answers to questions ranging from the reproduction of copyrighted works for library users, through the performance of audiovisual works, to the digitization and display of protected works on library websites. This book presents updated versions of the authors copyright columns published in "Against the Grain," the leading journal in acquisitions librarianship since the late 1990s. It is the first volume in the series "Charleston Insights in Library, Archival, and Information Sciences." The aim of the "Charleston Insights" series is to focus on important topics in library and information science, presenting the issues in a relatively jargon-free way that is accessible to all types of information professionals, including librarians, publishers, and vendors, and this goal shapes the pragmatic and accessible tone of the book. The volume is presented in question-and-answer format. The questions are real, submitted by librarians, educators, and other information professionals who have attended the authors copyright law workshops and presentations or submitted them to her by e-mail or telephone. The author has selected the questions and answers that have general applicability. She has then arranged them into logical chapters, each prefaced by a short introduction to the topic. Because it is written in an accessible and clear style, readers may want to review the entire work or they can just access particular chapters or even specific questions as they need them. The volume includes an index to facilitate reference use.

From the shopping mall to the corner bistro, knockoffs are everywhere in today's marketplace. Conventional wisdom holds that copying kills creativity, and that laws that protect against copies are essential to innovation--and economic success. But are copyrights and patents always necessary? In The Knockoff Economy, Kal Raustiala and Christopher Sprigman provocatively argue that creativity can not only survive in the face of copying, but can thrive. The Knockoff Economy approaches the question of incentives and innovation in a wholly new way--by exploring creative fields where copying is generally legal, such as fashion, food, and even professional football. By uncovering these important but rarely studied industries, Raustiala and Sprigman reveal a nuanced and fascinating relationship between imitation and innovation. In some creative fields, copying is kept in check through informal industry norms enforced by private sanctions. In others, the freedom to copy actually promotes creativity. High fashion gave rise to the very term "knockoff," yet the freedom to imitate great designs only makes the fashion cycle run faster--and forces the fashion industry to be even more creative. Raustiala and Sprigman carry their analysis from food to font design to football plays to finance, examining how and why each of these vibrant industries remains innovative even when imitation is common. There is an important thread that ties all these instances together--successful creative industries can evolve to the point where they become inoculated against--and even profit from--a world of free and easy copying. And there are important lessons here for copyright-focused industries, like music and film, that have struggled as digital technologies have made copying increasingly widespread and difficult to stop. Raustiala and Sprigman's arguments have been making headlines in The New Yorker, the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Boston Globe, Le Monde, and at the Freakonomics blog, where they are regular contributors. By looking where few had looked before--at markets that fall outside normal IP law--The Knockoff Economy opens up fascinating creative worlds. And it demonstrates that not only is a great deal of innovation possible without intellectual property, but that intellectual property's absence is sometimes better for innovation.

In today's complex media environment, aspiring filmmakers and new media artists are as vulnerable as swimmers in shark-infested waters. This user-friendly guide supplies creative artists with the essential legal concepts needed to swim safely with lawyers, agents, executives, and other experts in intellectual property and business law. How do I copyright my screenplay? How can I clear rights for my film project? What can I do to avoid legal trouble when I produce my mockumentary? How do I ascertain whether a vintage novel is in the public domain? Is the trademark I've invented for my production company available? What about copyright and trademark rights overseas? If I upload my film to YouTube, do I give up any rights? Bill Seiter and Ellen Seiter answer these questions and countless others while also demystifying the fundamental principles of intellectual property. Clear and thorough, this plain-spoken and practical guide is essential for anyone seeking to navigate the rapidly changing media environment of today.

Using proven Examples & Explanations pedagogy, this comprehensive studyguide provides students with a short account of the law, followed by avariety of concrete examples and explanations that help reinforce andgive substance to the key rules and concepts in copyright law. Itsflexible organization lets students move freely between topics thatrange from classic copyright cases, such as rights of authorship, toareas of contemporary interest, including Internet use, open sourcelicensing and online music rights.The Third Edition presents a wide range of new case law, examplesand explanations, including online copyright infringement, boundaries offair use, the legality of hacking the iPhone and the moral rights ofartists.Hallmark features:* Proven Examples and Explanations pedagogy reinforces keyrules and concepts.* Comprehensive coverage of aspects of copyright law,together with international and theoretical underpinnings of thelaw.* Builds student understanding step by step and allows studentsto work with fact settings - key to understanding and applyingcopyright law.* Up to date Supreme Court cases and legislation.* Covers developing judicial interpretation in such areasas originality, the idea/expression distinction, fair use, ownership,and scope of exclusive rights.* Addresses areas of contemporary interest, such as music,open source licensing, and Internet issues.* Short sections covering related state law doctrines andfederal preemption.* Flexible organization allows students to study chaptersin any order.The Third Edition has been updated to include:* The Supreme Court's view of the constitutional limitson the scope of copyright legislation .* Cases on the extent of moral rights of artists.* Multiple new cases covering:* The boundaries of fair use.* Licensing issues.* Work made for hire in the startup company context.* Rights of buyers of copyrighted products and services.* Limits on digital rights management systems.* ISP liability for customer copyright infringement.* Limits on damages for downloading.* Enforcement of online copyright infringement - a newbusiness model.* Legality of jailbreaking the iPhone.

Intellectual property law in the United States does not work well and it needs to be reformed—but not for the reasons given by most critics. The issue is not that intellectual property rights are too easily obtained, too broad in scope, and too long in duration. Rather, the primary problem is overreaching by publishers, producers, artists, and others who abuse intellectual property law by claiming stronger rights than the law actually gives them. From copyfraud—like phony copyright notices attached to the U.S. Constitution—to lawsuits designed to prevent people from poking fun at Barbie, from controversies over digital sampling in hip-hop to Major League Baseball's ubiquitous restriction on sharing any "accounts and descriptions of this game," overreaching claims of intellectual property rights are everywhere. Overreaching interferes with legitimate uses and reproduction of a wide variety of works, imposes enormous social and economic costs, and ultimately undermines creative endeavors. As this book reveals, the solution is not to change the scope or content of intellectual property rights, but to create mechanisms to prevent people asserting rights beyond those they legitimately possess. While there are many other books on intellectual property, this is the first to examine overreaching as a distinct problem and to show how to solve it. Jason Mazzone makes a series of timely proposals by which government, organizations, and ordinary people can stand up to creators and content providers when they seek to grab more than the law gives them.

Written on the occasion of copyright's 300th anniversary, John Tehranian's Infringement Nation presents an engaging and accessible analysis of the history and evolution of copyright law and its profound impact on the lives of ordinary individuals in the twenty-first century. Organized around the trope of the individual in five different copyright-related contexts - as an infringer, transformer, pure user, creator and reformer - the book charts the changing contours of our copyright regimeand assesses its vitality in the digital age. In the process, Tehranian questions some of our most basic assumptions about copyright law by highlighting the unseemly amount of infringement liability an average person rings up in a single day, the counterintuitive role of the fair use doctrine in radically expanding the copyright monopoly, the important expressive interests at play in even the unauthorized use of copyright works, the surprisingly low level of protection that American copyright law grants many creators, and the broader political import of copyright law on the exertion of social regulation and control. Drawing upon both theory and the author's own experiences representing clients in various high-profile copyright infringement suits, Tehranian supports his arguments with a rich array of diverse examples crossing various subject matters - from the unusual origins of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," the question of numeracy among Amazonian hunter-gatherers, thehistory of stand-offs at papal nunciatures, and the tradition of judicial plagiarism to contemplations on Slash's criminal record, Barbie's retrousse nose, the poisonous tomato, flag burning, music as a form of torture, the smell of rotting film, William Shakespeare as a man of the people, Charles Dickens as a lobbyist, Ashley Wilkes's sexual orientation, Captain Kirk's reincarnation, and Holden Caulfield's maturation. In the end, Infringement Nation makes a sophisticated yet lucid case for reform of existing doctrine and the development of a copyright 2.0.

Laden with examples and leavened with humor, their exposition guides the reader through both the traditional topics, such as fair use, and more modern topics, such as the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, without getting bogged down in unnecessary or tedious detail. This title is ideal for end-of-semester review by students in both basic and advanced courses on copyright law, and also will be of use to practitioners and other legal professionals seeking a comprehensive yet manageable introduction to the subject.

An Associate's Guide to the Practice of Copyright Lawguides associates through what is typically the most challenging part of their job: knowing where to find information and what specifically they need to complete a particular task or assignment. Written by a senior associate and a supervising partner, the authors rein in the work process for associates and give practice-oriented advice on important topics such as what questions to ask a client, what research to conduct, what elements must be met for various causes of action, the potential repercussions for various actions and the proper alternatives to be considered. The book also includes sample documents and pleadings, references to secondary sources and key cases in copyright law. A CD-ROM containing many forms in electronic format, is included.

Coverage ranges from the fundamental concepts of originality, authorship, and infringement, to the highly technical rules governing digital phonorecord deliveries and digital public performance rights in sound recordings, the safe harbor provisions that limit the liability of internet service providers, and the anti-circumvention and copyright management information provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. The ever-evolving doctrines of fair use and contributory liability are given thorough attention.

Providing a vital economic incentive for much of society's music, art, and literature, copyright is widely considered "the engine of free expression"--but it is also used to stifle news reporting, political commentary, historical scholarship, and even artistic expression. In Copyright's Paradox, Neil Weinstock Netanel explores the tensions between copyright law and free speech, revealing the unacceptable burdens on expression that copyright can impose. Tracing the conflict across both traditional and digital media, Netanel examines the remix and copying culture at the heart of current controversies related to the Google Book Search litigation, YouTube and MySpace, hip-hop music, and digital sampling. The author juxtaposes the dramatic expansion of copyright holders' proprietary control against the individual's newly found ability to digitally cut, paste, edit, remix, and distribute sound recordings, movies, TV programs, graphics, and texts the world over. He tests whether, in light of these and other developments, copyright still serves as a vital engine of free expression and assesses how copyright does--and does not--burden free speech. Taking First Amendment values as his lodestar, Netanel offers a crucial, timely call to redefine the limits of copyright so it can most effectively promote robust debate and expressive diversity--and he presents a definitive blueprint for how this can be accomplished.

Looseleaf treatise on copyright law

"Reprinted from 2006 Mich. St. l. rev. 33."
"This paper is based on Professor Lawrence Lessig's Second Annual Distinguished Lecture in Intellectual Property and Communications Law at Michigan State University College of Law on April 8, 2005."--Abstract

Updated looseleaf treatise on copyright.

Who owns academic work? This question is provoking political and legal battles, fought on uncertain terrain, for ever-higher stakes. The posting of faculty lecture notes on commercial Web sites is being hotly debated in multiple forums, even as faculty and university administrators square off in a battle for professorial copyright. In courtrooms throughout the country, universities find themselves embroiled in intricate and expensive patent litigation. Meanwhile, junior researchers are appearing in those same courtrooms, using intellectual property rules to challenge traditional academic hierarchies. All but forgotten in these ownership disputes is a more fundamental question: should academic work be owned at all? Once characterized as a kind of gift, academic work--and academic freedom--are now being reframed as private intellectual property. Drawing on legal, historical, and qualitative research, Corynne McSherry explores the propertization of academic work and shows how that process is shaking the foundations of the university, the professoriate, and intellectual property law. The modern university's reason for being is inextricably tied to that of the intellectual property system. The rush of universities and scholars to defend their knowledge as property dangerously undercuts a working covenant that has sustained academic life--and intellectual property law--for a century and a half. As the value structure of the research university is replaced by the inequalities of the free market, academics risk losing a language for talking about knowledge as anything other than property. McSherry has written a book that ought to deeply trouble everyone who cares about the academy.

This article appeared in volume 47, Journal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A. (2000) 317

The primary focus of this comprehensive text is on the Copyright Act of 1976 & the developing case law in our digital age & networked environment. Copyright law is presented in its institutional, economic & historical contexts. Its relationship with other areas of intellectual property law is explored. explores the latest statutory changes, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, & the Sonny Bono Term Extension Act recently passed by Congress. This highly effective text provides students with the necessary background & current doctrine to analyze copyright problems properly.

Resuscitating a collaboration with Melville Nimmer : moral rights and beyond -- Moral rights and beyond : considerations for the College Art Association

Provides a unique approach to analyzing legislative historyby enabling the researcher to easily locate and tracesources of changes in the development of the 1976 CopyrightAct in the order that they occurred.

Accompanied by a CD ROM
LAW LIBRARY HAS: MOST RECENT EDITION ON SHELF, OTHERS WITHDRAWN
Published by: BNA Books, <1989->

Updated looseleaf treatise on copyright law.

Hearings held May 26-Sept. 2, 1965 on H. R. 4347, 5680, 6831 [and] 6835

LIBRARY HAS: 1931-1976, 1979-1984, 1988-1991
Vols. for 1931-1936 bound with vol. for 1930 of previous title: Committee reports made for section meeting to be held at ...