Why Have Copyright Law?

Lying just under the surface of the debates that surround copyright law are sharp disagreements about what are the justifications, if any, for recognizing and protecting copyrights. Some observers and interested parties argue that copyrights need no policy justification because authors have an inherent right...

Introduction

Copyright law was once an esoteric backwater, the special province of professional authors, publishers, and media companies. That’s no longer the case. In our age of social media and cloud storage, we have become a copying and sharing culture. In turn, copyright law now directly...

Current Controversies

Does file sharing really harm authors and copyright industries? The copyright industries insist that file sharing (via both downloading and streaming) poses a major threat to their future viability. Underlying that concern, the industries—and many observers—posit that individuals who can freely enjoy music and video...

“The Next great Copyright Act”

What is copyright reform? The term “copyright reform” connotes a significant modification or full-scale revision of the Copyright Act. Congress typically entertains the possibility of copyright reform when new technologies for disseminating creative expression have rendered the existing Copyright Act inadequate or obsolete. Our current...

Copyright in the International Arena

Copyright markets are global in scope. U.S.-based copyright industries (some of which are multinational conglomerates) earn a significant share of their revenues from exports. Social media also transcend national borders. So do notorious file-sharing sites like Pirate Bay. United States copyright industries complain bitterly that...

Fair Use

Fair use is a longstanding, major exception to copyright owners’ exclusive rights. You do not infringe copyright if your copying of someone else’s work qualifies as fair use. I explained some fair use basics in Chapter I. Recall that to determine whether a...

The Battles Over Copyright: Overview

As we have seen in Chapter I, copyright law reflects a delicate balance. Copyright law provides authors with a set of exclusive rights to copy and disseminate their creative expression. But copyrights are also punctuated by significant exceptions and limitations. These include fair...

Copyright: what it is and what it is not

One cannot follow the debates over copyright’s present and future without understanding copyright’s key doctrines and concepts. This chapter provides that understanding. The copyright law of the United States is a product of over two hundred years of judicial decisions and congressional legislation. It spans...