Search results

This paper argues that the revolution in intellectual property rights is not forward-looking, but backward looking, and that it is not consonant with the purposes of the patent and copyright clause. It is animated by the theory of common law copyright, which deliberately reconceptualizes social relations in order to recast them as property, and which has been with us for centuries. This paper investigates the “mythology of common law copyright,” showing how this reconceptualization has worked both historically and in the present day to push the law in a direction that is ostensibly author-centered, but is actually focused on the rights of intermediaries.

Purpose – This chapter explores the use of music and celebrity endorsements in political campaigns of the United States. It focuses on two aspects: (1) the legality of a political campaign’s use of music at rallies and in advertisements without authorization from the owner of the musical work and (2) a review of the literature on the potential effect of the use of music in political campaigns on voter behavior.

Design/methodology/approach – A brief history of the use of music in political campaigns precedes an examination of the expansion of copyright law protection for music and the legal claims musicians may raise against the unauthorized use of music by political campaigns. The chapter then reviews the potential effect of political campaigns’ use of music and celebrity endorsements on voter behavior.

Findings – A musician’s primary legal protection falls under copyright law, but the courts disagree on whether the unauthorized use of music at political rallies and in political campaign advertisements results in copyright infringement. Social research suggests music and celebrity endorsements affect voter behavior with a likely greater effect on first-time voters.

Originality/value of chapter – This chapter introduces the complicated application of copyright law to the unauthorized use of musical works by political campaigns. Additionally, it notes the limited research on the effect of music and celebrity endorsements on voter behavior even as political campaigns increasingly target niche demographics with specific music selections to motivate voters to vote.

Copyright law has been oft-criticized for its unintended consequences. This paper retells three “tales of the unintended” concerning the 1976 Copyright Act, the present U.S. copyright statute. The first tale focuses on fair use, the second on statutory damages, and the third on formalities. From these three tales, the paper draws five different morals that provide insights into the ongoing process of copyright reform. These insights will enable policymakers and commentators to rethink the ongoing and future development of copyright law.

This paper is designed to seek out the everyday narratives of copyright. To find these narratives, I analyze the comments section of websites where users can post their reactions to copyright-related stories. I argue that understanding how people who are not legal scholars frame the use of copyright as they discuss sharing, owning, and controlling the copy is a good place to begin to develop a sense for the everyday life of copyright law.

The concept of user rights in copyright law has clear affinities with the concept of copyright scope. The scope of an author’s entitlement over her work is lessened in proportion to the extent to which we assert that users, too, have rights. Yet user rights have profound implications not only with regard to copyright scope but also with regard to copyright subject matter. User rights implicate not only the scope of an author’s entitlement, but also the very nature of her work. Integrating user rights into copyright jurisprudence requires that a work of authorship be conceived not as an intangible commodity or metaphysical chattel, but as an act of speech performed by its author. The proposition that user rights are integral to copyright law makes sense only if we regard authors as speakers, and works of authorship as acts of communication.

The expansion of copyright and the shrinking of the public domain did not begin with the Internet, but the Internet has exacerbated the problem. The threat posed by digital technology has led industries to obtain increasingly absolute protection over their “property.” In this paper I will argue that developing a vibrant public domain is essential for resisting the overextension of copyrights and patents. Developing the public domain as a counterpoint to copyright and patent law is vital to an energized public sphere and by extension a democratic system.

Purpose – In this chapter, I explore the graduated response approach to combatting online piracy, and examine the different ways in which this approach has been implemented in the United States and around the world.

Design/methodology/approach – I discuss the legal, political, and industrial origins and current state of the graduated response programs in each country.

Findings – Overall, the most successfully launched graduated response programs have been the ones where a single entity is overseeing the program implementation, and the code of conduct has been well articulated.

Originality/value of chapter – Few scholars have examined the processes leading up to the implementation of graduated response programs and the mechanics of how they work in practice. This chapter does this by looking, chronologically, at the developments in each country as well as the choreography of its notice process.

I begin with a dispute over a fox hunt, by which to understand the law of tangible property, then develop that metaphor for the major types of intellectual property. I start with domestic U.S. patent law for the sake of concreteness, and generalize to other jurisdictions and types of intellectual property. In the latter parts of the paper I discuss the international implications of intellectual property, including especially the effects of information spillovers. The last part of the paper describes the hazards in analogizing “trade” in intellectual property rights to trade in goods, and particularly in interpreting international patent data. These hazards motivate the search for a structural model specially adapted to the purpose of valuing international intellectual property rights and rules. The goal is to give economists a simple and integrated framework for analyzing intellectual property across time, jurisdiction and regime type, with an eye towards eventually developing other incentive systems that have the advantages of property (such as decentralized decision-making), but fewer of the disadvantages.

This chapter provides an overview of the five main modes of intellectual property (IP) protection – patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, and designs – available in the United States, the European Union, and Japan. After describing the purposes of and principal differences among the five types of IP protection and outlining the advantages of each form, the chapter provides country- and region-specific information. The authors highlight the aspects of IP law in which international harmonization has, or has not yet, occurred, and offer insights into the relative advantages of various national and regional IP protection systems.