Everyone Hates DRM
Prof. Douglas Lichtman, UCLA School of Law
June 25, 2009

Ten years ago, a meaningful discussion of copyright law could focus almost exclusively on the federal copyright statute and its related case law. At that time, the primary powers wielded by copyright holders were rights granted explicitly by the statute, such as the exclusive right to authorize duplication, and the exclusive right to authorize distribution.... >> Read More

The Google Book Search Settlement:
A New Orphan-Works Monopoly?
Prof. Randal C. Picker, The University of Chicago Law School
June 18, 2009

Google is a company of modest ambitions.  As it puts it in its brief corporate statement, Google’s mission is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”  Organize it, put it online, display it, and make a few dollars at the same time. Google’s Book Search  is a core piece of this vision... >> Read More

Public Licenses: The Gift That Keeps On Giving
Prof. Jane C. Ginsburg, Columbia University School of Law
June 11, 2009

Rob Merges’s recent (May 26) contribution on “Intellectual Property and the Culture of Giving” inspires this follow-up. Rob evoked “the right (and wrong) way to give [rights] away.” I would like to consider further whether public licenses for works other than software, such as those proposed by Creative Commons (CC) that facilitate free distribution of works, are the right (or wrong) way for authors... >> Read More

Intellectual Property and the Culture of Gifting
Prof. Robert P. Merges, Boalt Hall School of Law, UC-Berkeley
May 26, 2009

The current literature on IP rights is full of contrasts.  On one side are the champions of the digital revolution, who argue that traditional IP rights are generally unsuited to the new world of digital content.  They claim that the inherited structure of IP rights was designed for an analog world, and so it fits uncomfortably with the new reality of instantaneous, ubiquitous interconnection.  Many go further... >> Read More

When Is Market Destruction Creative?
Prof. Stan Liebowitz, University of Texas – Dallas
May 20, 2009

Economists and non-economists alike tend to be familiar with the phrase “creative destruction” and its implications that, although established firms may bemoan new innovation upsetting apple carts in their industry, and government may try to protect them from those changes, in the end we are all better off because of the creative commotion... >> Read More

Election Copyright – “You Press the Button, We Do the Rest”
Prof. Justin Hughes, Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University
May 6, 2009

The dispute going to copyright’s fundamentals erupted shortly after the election and concerns the emblematic "Hope" poster of Barak Obama's presidential campaign.  The poster, by Shepard Fairey, was based on a photograph taken by Mannie Garcia, a Washington photographer who was working for the Associated Press (AP).  The AP claimed ownership of the photo and sought payment for the poster as a derivative work.... >> Read More

The Case for (Considering) Regulation of Technology
Prof. Jim Gibson, University of Richmond School of Law
May 1, 2009

Given a choice, which would you prefer: A world in which it is easier to encrypt information than to decrypt it? A world in which decryption is easier than encryption? A world in which the two stand in a cost/benefit equipoise? When the question is put like that, the answer seems to depend... >> Read More

Election Copyright – They’re Playing Our Song
Prof. Justin Hughes, Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University
April 14, 2009

Among all its other historic precedents, the 2008 presidential election provided an inordinate number of copyright disputes involving the candidates.  To opponents of intellectual property, that will just be further proof that copyright is out of control, permeating our lives in ways that restrict both technological progress and freedom of expression... >> Read More

IP Rights and 'Creative Professionals'
Prof. Robert P. Merges, Boalt Hall School of Law, UC-Berkeley
March 25, 2009

I take the participatory, democratic aspects of culture very seriously.  I have devoted some effort to thinking through how the inherited legal structure of IP rights can be adapted and modified to encourage the many new avenues of participatory creativity – the wikis, open source projects, and other forms of what are called “crowdsourcing.” But – and here is where I differ from a fair number of contemporary IP scholars...>> Read More

Amazon’s Kindle 2: The Copyright Ghost in the Machine
Prof. Jim Gibson, University of Richmond
March 11, 2009

A number of copyright controversies have caught the public’s eye this year — e.g., the lawsuit over the AP photo of Barak Obama, the feud between Coldplay and Joe Satriani, the debate about Facebook’s policies toward the intellectual property of its users.  Yet these disputes, fascinating though they are, involve the application of well-known legal principles....
>> Read More

Are Statutory Damages Constitutional?
Prof. Doug Lichtman, UCLA School of Law
March 4, 2009

A few months ago, Harvard Law School Professor Charlie Nesson took Joel Tenenbaum as a client. Tenenbaum was up until then just one of the thousands of individuals who had been sued by the music industry for uploading and downloading music online. But with Nesson now involved....>> Read More

Welcome Google 3.0 – Ushering Professional Content Into the World’s Leading Search Environment
Prof. Peter S. Menell, UC-Berkeley School of Law
Feb. 24, 2009

For much of its first decade of meteoric growth, Google built its Internet search engine business without the apparent need or desire to license copyrighted content. Relying on the DMCA’s online service provider safe harbors, the fair use doctrine, and implied consent, Google 1.0 blissfully indexed the Internet’s text.... >> Read More

Authors’ Contracts: Don’t Give Away the Store!
Prof. Jane C. Ginsburg, Columbia Law School
Feb. 19, 2009

I’d like to invite readers to take a tour of a website, www.keepyourcopyrights.org, which the Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts, and the Center for Law and Technology at Columbia Law School have launched in the hope of bringing some power back to the people who create works of authorship.... >> Read More

The lawsuit filed Feb. 9 by Shepard Fairey against the Associated Press raises some basic questions about what copyright does and doesn’t do. Yesterday’s New York Times describes the background and displays the two critical images. The first is a photograph snapped by Mannie Garcia for the Associated Press.... >> Read More