Author(s): Jason Schultz Year: 2011 Abstract: Copyright law struggles to provide a coherent framework for analyzing personal uses. Although there is widespread agreement that at least some such uses are non-infringing, the doctrinal basis for that conclusion remains unclear. In particular, the prevailing explanations of fair use and implied license are both flawed in important […]
Copyright Exhaustion and the Personal Use Dilemma
Can Online Piracy Be Stopped by Laws?
Author(s): Pamela Samuelson Year: 2012 Abstract: This article will explain the key features of SOPA, why the entertainment industry believed SOPA was necessary to combat online piracy, and why SOPA came to be perceived as so flawed that numerous sponsors withdrew their support from the bill. Keywords: Stop Online Piracy Act, SOPA Link: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2171474
The Uneasy Case for Software Copyrights Revisited
Author(s): Pamela Samuelson Year: 2011 Abstract: Forty years ago, Justice Stephen Breyer expressed serious doubts about the economic soundness of extending copyright protection to computer programs in his seminal article, “The Uneasy Case for Copyright.” This article revisits “The Uneasy Case” to consider whether Breyer’s skepticism about copyright for computer programs was warranted at the […]
Amicus Brief of Law Scholars in Fox v. Dish, No. 12-57048 (9th Cir)
Author(s): Jason Schultz Year: 2013 Abstract: The outcome of this case will affect the future of private non-commercial time-shifting of television programs – a fair use right expressly recognized by the Supreme Court almost three decades ago in Sony Corp. of America v. University City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417 (1984). The advance of technology […]
Oracle America, Inc. v. Google Inc., Brief of Amici Curiae Intellectual Property Professors in Support of Defendant-Cross Appellant and Affirmance
Author(s): Pamela Samuelson Year: 2013 Abstract: Three fundamental errors undergird Oracle’s legal position on this appeal of a District Court ruling that the Java Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) at issue in this case are unprotectable by U.S. copyright law. First, Oracle takes an unduly narrow view of 17 U.S.C. § 102(b), which provides that “[i]n […]
Brief Amici Curiae of 133 Academic Authors in Support of HathiTrust Digital Library
Author(s): Pamela Samuelson Year: 2013 Abstract: The HathiTrust digital library contains over 7.3 million potentially in-copyright books. The complaint in this case has demanded that the court impound the in-copyright books in this repository and enjoin the use of all 7.3 million of these books, although the Authors Guild and its co-plaintiffs have identified only […]
Brief of Software Innovators, Start-Ups, and Investors as Amici Curiae in Oracle v. Google
Author(s): Jennifer Urban Year: 2013 Abstract: How Limitations on Copyright in Computer Programs Are Critical to Software Innovation and Investment. This case raises critical questions about how far copyright extends into the basic communication tools — Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) — that are presently ubiquitous in the Web environment and software development generally. APIs establish […]
The Continuum of Excludability and the Limits of Patents
Author(s): Amy Kapczynski and Talha Syed Year: 2013 Abstract: In IP scholarship, patents are commonly understood as more efficient than other approaches to innovation policy. Their primary ostensible advantage is allocative: as a form of property rights, patents act as a conduit between market signals and potential innovators, ostensibly guiding investment toward inventions with the […]
Brief of Amici Curiae National Alliance for Media Art and Culture, the Alliance for Community Media, and Kartemquin Films in Viacom v. YouTube
Author(s): Jennifer Urban Year: 2013 Abstract: This case presents important doctrinal, technical, and theoretical issues for online platform users and innovators – especially for independent voices that rely on open online platforms to reach audiences. Online media platforms like YouTube offer independent media artists opportunities to reach national and global audiences that did not exist […]
One Hundred Years of Solicitude: Intellectual Property Law, 1900-2000
Author(s): Robert P. Merges Year: 2001 Abstract: The elaboration of intellectual property law is closely intertwined with new technologies. This Review Essay draws on selected episodes from the past 100 years to illustrate the three typical stages by which the legal system accomodates new technologies: (1) disequilibrium; (2) adaptation and adjustment; and (3) legislative consolidation. […]