Prof. Jim Gibson, University of Richmond School of Law November 23, 2010 When an individual makes a music or movie file available for downloading by others, without the permission of the copyright owner, is that an infringing act? Or does infringement take place only when the file is actually downloaded? This thorny copyright issue is [...]
Prof. Jane C. Ginsburg, Columbia University School of Law October 28, 2010 In the Paleolithic period of analog copies and communications, the boundary between the exclusive rights of reproduction and public performance was clearly marked. The former right involved the making of physical copies; the latter did not. Rather it entailed the direct apprehension of [...]
Prof. Doug Lichtman, UCLA School of Law November 2, 2010 Over the last few weeks, I have been thinking a lot about Michael Heller’s engaging popular-press book, The Gridlock Economy.1 The book popularizes a concept that Heller has championed in his scholarship for years: the worry that, when it comes to property rights, too many [...]
Professor Peter S. Menell Director, Berkeley Center for Law & Technology University of California at Berkeley School of Law October 20, 2010 Prior to the emergence of peer-to-peer technology, the Copyright Act’s distribution right was largely dormant. Most enforcement actions were premised upon violations of copyright’s reproduction right. The relatively few cases invoking the distribution [...]
Prof. Rodney A. Smolla, President, Furman University October 5, 2010 A question that has long vexed courts and commentators is the extent to which First Amendment principles that heavily disfavor the issuance of prior restraints ought to apply, with either full force or diminished force, when injunctions, including preliminary injunctions, are sought to protect intellectual [...]
Prof. Randal C. Picker, The University of Chicago Law School September 14, 2010 Last Friday, the Ninth Circuit decided an important case about the scope of the first-sale doctrine in copyright as applied to computer software. In Vernor v. Autodesk, the court concluded that the documents in question created a license rather than a sale [...]
Prof. Jim Gibson, University of Richmond School of Law September 8, 2010 A few months ago, I wrote an essay for this series that argued for reinstatement of formalities as a prerequisite to copyright protection. I left unaddressed one of the main objections to such a system: the fact that international law is unfriendly to [...]
Prof. Jane C. Ginsburg, Columbia University School of Law August 18, 2010 When the United States ratified the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPs) in 1994, it undertook to implement Article 18 of the Berne Convention (a provision the United States had left unaddressed when the U.S. ratified the Berne Convention in [...]
Professor Peter S. Menell, Director, Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, University of California at Berkeley School of Law August 31, 2010 With nearly 12 years of experience, we are now in a better position to assess the effects of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Section 512 safe harbors. At the time that Congress [...]
Prof. Doug Lichtman, UCLA School of Law August 9, 2010 Patent law intentionally and explicitly exaggerates damages. That is, when a court decides that a valid patent has been infringed, it typically imposes a remedy, the net value of which clearly exceeds the value of any deal the parties would have made had they negotiated [...]