Copyright Law Ronald W. Staudt

Class 2January 26, 2009

Copyright © 2001, 2002 2004 2007 2008 Ronald W. Staudt

GLOBAL DIGITAL MUSIC SALES UP 25 PERCENT

BNA's Internet Law News - 1/21/09

IFPI says that legitimate digital music sales grew strongly in 2008 but were still dwarfed by the scale of illegal downloads, despite industry efforts to adapt to the Internet and offer more choice to customers. …legal digital global sales grew by an estimated 25 percent to $3.7 billion in trade value, to account for about 20 percent of the industry's global recorded music sales, up from 15 percent in 2007. [Washington Post]

RIAA Trying to Hide Actions in CourtMyMediaMusings January 22, 2009

RIAA, the group perhaps most singly responsible for turning music fans against the major labels, is currently suing a young man who is being defended, in part, by a Harvard professor. In an attempt to shed some light on the absurd arguments RIAA uses to make their case, the defendants requested that the court allow the trial to be webcast live.

Tenenbaum’s attorneys had sought the Webcast, arguing that streaming the hearing would allow the public to effectively attend the trial. The record industry opposed the request on the grounds that the publicity could prejudice a potential jury pool.

Gertner last week discounted the RIAA’s arguments, noting that the organization repeatedly said it sued non-commercial file swappers in order to generate publicity that would dissuade others from sharing music. Her order authorized the Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society to host the streams.(via)

Now the trial has been delayed as RIAA appeals this decision.

Pirates 'streaming' Hollywood's latest into your home; Studios losing millions to growing popularity of websites that give you new movies for free The Independent on Sunday January 25, 2009 British cinema goers will have to wait until it opens next week to see if

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button deserves the Oscar and Bafta nominations showered upon it. But thousands of people across the UK have already watched the film on their computers at home, thanks to the latest internet piracy phenomenon: live "streaming" of movies on YouTube-style websites.

Film piracy watchdogs are so concerned about the rapidly expanding phenomenon that they have now launched a major clampdown.

Films not yet released in this country…can be seen on sites such as Watch-Movies. net, which operate in the grey area of copyright law. The films have already been released in other countries, where they are copied, mainly by camcorder in a cinema.

"The problem is that the website server may be in one territory, the person who uploads the film in another, and the site on which the film is hosted in a third, so it requires a lot of international co-operation."

Assignment for next class

Wednesday, January 28, 2009Distinctions between Copyright and

other legal protections, pp. 49-74Bell v. CataldaTrademark CasesWarneDastar v. 20th Century FoxForward v. Thorogood

Today

Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony 111 U.S. 53

(1884) LEXSEE® 111 U.S. 53

Bleistein v. Donaldson Lithographing Co. 188 U.S. 239 (1903) LEXSEE® 188 U.S. 239

Questions on page 36-7

Copyright Overview 37- 49

Competing Perspectives Wednesday’s Reading & Today

Chafee quoting Macaulay, p 15:

“It is a tax on readers for the purpose of giving a bounty to writers. The tax is an exceedingly bad one; it is a tax on one of the most innocent and most salutary of human pleasures…”

Ladd, p 28:

“Every limitation on copyright is a kind of rate-setting. …more wisely left with the people than vested in a government tribunal…or even a sincere judge…

http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/clarklib/wildphot/sarony.htm

Burrow-Giles

U.S. Constitution Art 1, Sect. 8, Cl. 8“To promote the progress of science and

useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries”

Was © established under the existing statute?

Burrow-Giles

Writing?…Production of an author?

1790--maps charts and books 1802 add prints 1831 musical compositions 1856 plays and public performances 1865 photographs 1870 painting drawings sculpture

What is an author?

Burrow-Giles

Author: “he to whom anything owes its origin…”

Writing: “…original intellectual conceptions of an author...”

New? Original?

… if a chromo, lithograph, or other print, engraving, or picture has no other use than that of a mere advertisement, and no value aside from this function, it would not be promotive of the useful arts, within the meaning of the constitutional provision, to protect the "author" in the exclusive use thereof, and the copyright statute should not be construed as including such a publication, if any other construction is admissible.

Bleistein below & Justice Harlan’s dissent

If a mere label simply designating or describing an article to which it is attached, and which has no value separated from the article, does not come within the constitutional clause upon the subject of copyright, it must follow that a pictorial illustration designed and useful only as an advertisement, and having no intrinsic value other than its function as an advertisement, must be equally without the obvious meaning of the constitution.

Bleistein below & dissent, Justice Harlan

Bleistein

Famous quotes:

But even if they had been drawn from life, that fact would not deprive them of protection. ... Valasquez and Whistler argument?

Others are free to copy the original. They are not free to copy the copy.

Bleistein

Famous quotes:

The copy is the personal reaction of an individual upon nature. Personality always contains something unique. It expresses its singularity even in handwriting, and a very modest grade of art has in it something irreducible, which is one man's alone. That something he may copyright unless there is a restriction in the words of the act.

Bleistein

Famous quotes:

The least pretentious picture has moreoriginality in it than directories and the like, which may be copyrighted.

Is the poster original, enough “work” or “effort”

Bleistein

Famous quotes:

A rule cannot be laid down that would excommunicate the paintings of Degas. Ads in?

Bleistein

Famous quotes:

It would be a dangerous undertaking for persons trained only to the law to constitute themselves final judges of the worth of pictorial illustrations, outside of the narrowest and most obvious limits.

“In connection with the fine arts?”

Questions p. 36-7

Comic stripDesign for a flagPornographic workUnpublished work in a drawer1000 yearsAuthorship, does it imply work, noveltyWriting –what is excluded?

Overview of Copyright Law

Pp. 37-49 in the casebook

Copyright Basics: an introduction to copyright law drawn from the copyright statute and from Copyright Basics by the Library of Congress, Copyright Office: http://www.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ1.html

See also CCC web page: http://www.copyright.com/ccc/viewPage.do?pageCode=cr10-n