Currently viewing the category: "Copyright Issues and Legislation"

What were they thinking?

On February 17, 2012 By

When the Chronicle of Higher Education ran this story about the relatively new intellectual property policy at the University of Louisiana, one of my colleagues reacted with the question in my title.  It is a valid thing to ask — how did the University system think this was going to go when they drafted [...]

Continue Reading →

Grasping at straws

On February 14, 2012 By

Last week, “Inside Higher Ed” ran an article about the release by the White House of all the comments submitted to the Office of Science and Technology Policy in response to their request for information about public access to federally-funded research.  I was gratified to see that they chose to quote from the comments [...]

Continue Reading →

Fair Use ferment

On February 2, 2012 By

There is a lot happening in fair use these days, even as we are still waiting for a decision in the Georgia State copyright infringement v. fair use case.

One of the realities of modern political campaigning is that candidates like to use popular music or other material to increase the energy and appeal of [...]

Continue Reading →

Who do you work for, faculty author?

On January 25, 2012 By

In two recent blog posts, one describing the original dilemma and one his decision about it, Professor Steven Shaviro discusses his experiences trying to publish an essay in a collection that was being prepared by Oxford University Press.  He balked at the contract he was offered, and ultimately decided not to publish in [...]

Continue Reading →

Losing our focus

On January 18, 2012 By

Today the Supreme Court issued a decision in the case of Golan v. Holder which is a significant defeat, I think, for the public domain in the United States.  Reading the opinion has made me wonder if we have really strayed from our fundamental commitments about intellectual property.

The case involved the complex and technical [...]

Continue Reading →

Tinkering with Article III

On January 11, 2012 By

Article III of the United States Constitution creates the Supreme Court and provides the skeletal framework for the federal courts system, which Congress is invited to flesh out.  Section 1338 of Title 28 of the United States Code establishes that the federal district courts are to have “original jurisdiction” over all civil actions arising [...]

Continue Reading →

Breaking technology

On January 5, 2012 By

In the past few weeks I have seen several news reports and other actions that seem to form a pattern, where the traditional publishing industry has set out to break digital technologies in order to preserve their traditional business models.

Of course, the most radical effort to break the Internet so that it does not [...]

Continue Reading →

Using copyright for its intended purpose

On December 28, 2011 By

At its roots, copyright in the Anglo-American legal system is a statutory grant of rights intended to be an engine for innovation.  Copyright and patent legislation is the only type of law whose authorization in the Constitution is specifically tied to a purpose — “to promote the progress of science and useful arts.”  If copyright [...]

Continue Reading →

What fair use is for

On December 20, 2011 By

When I considered the Authors’ Guild lawsuit against the Hathi Trust and some of its partner institutions a couple of months ago, only the complaint had been filed, so it it was natural to focus on the motivation of the plaintiffs.  And those motives are not hard to discern; after tasting the possibility of [...]

Continue Reading →

SOPA and the Constitution

On December 12, 2011 By

I have written before (here and here) about the bills now before Congress that go by the name of PROTECT IP in the Senate and SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) in the House of Representatives.  There are many reasons why these are bad bills, and an alternative approach has recently been proposed.  [...]

Continue Reading →