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The fair use test can hinge on market effects: Did the unauthorized copy take sales away from the original artwork? After all, copyright law assumes that a viable market must exist for a work to deserve protection. The issue is that technology has unsettled the economics of creating original art by empowering people to make literature, visual art, music, and other forms of content in unlimited quantities and at zero-prices. This has quietly inspired a few courts to expand the scope of exclusive rights to include non-price interests like one's integrity or reputation (did the copy harm the artist's reputation?) because zeroprice art would ostensibly lack a market. While incorporating an artist's integrity or reputation into the analysis might help copyright to promote what actually motivates contemporary artists, it would also enable artists to squelch criticisms, unflattering portrayals, and parodies of their works, frustrating copyright's goal of disseminating new and meaningful expressions. This Essay explores how copyright should balance fair use and exclusive rights in the era of "free art" by interviewing scores of artists and authors about why they give their works away and what they expect. It finds that producers of zero-price content have devised a unique rule, which has no basis in copyright law: Third parties may copy and use another's zero-price art so long as it remains free. Subjects expressed anxiety that a "soulless corporation" could use their art in a product or advertising campaign, creating the guise of a partnership. One artist insisted that putting a price tag on art transforms it into "merchandise." While copyright assumes that zero-price content generally lacks a protectable market, the interviews show how copying can discourage artists from creating zero-price content or widely sharing it with global audiences. This Essay asserts that the fair use test must modernize, akin to other bodies of law, in recognizing the importance of zero-price markets. After all, the rise of free art has revolutionized the creative process by fostering new mediums and expressions as well as perspectives of those who were historically excluded from the arts--copyright's precise goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers update on the Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA) and discusses the role of social media response in judicial analysis of recognized stature of artworks. It provides an overview of the recognized stature provision and examines its treatment in the case Castillo v. G&M Realty LP. It discusses the role of social media platforms in increasing accessibility to and engagement with street art and the foundations for incorporating online response into recognized stature analysis.

The article discusses the need to reform the 1990 Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA) to protect the works of artists in the U.S. in the digital age. Other topics include the efforts by street artists to protect their moral rights on their works against those of real property owners, the Second Circuit Court's ruling in Castillo v. G & M Realty LP favoring artists' moral rights on their works, and the limitations on property rights called numerus clausus.

The impersonal legal language of contracts, termed the "aesthetic of administration" by Benjamin Buchloh, has had a strong impact on postwar conceptualist art. In the U.S., however, a two-tiered legal system explicitly existed from before the founding of the republic up through the end of Jim Crow, and, implicit in so-called "colorblind" legal discourse, continue to exist. Without claiming an exclusive status for Black conceptualist art, Black artists often employ a critical approach to the universalism assumed by the analytical ethos of conceptualism. Making use of text and performance, the works of artists Adrian Piper, Charles Gaines, William Pope.L, Glenn Ligon, and Cameron Rowland offer an archive of nuanced operationalised language. The hybrid practices of artists like Rick Lowe and Martine Syms spill over into curation, signalling an emphasis on administration as an avenue for accruing cultural capital. Black conceptual artists and Black curators can be framed within a history linked not to identity per se, but to a skepticism that expands and enriches the conceptualist tradition, while suggesting a need to transform systems by which cultural recognition is allocated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 25 October 2018, Christie's sold a rather interesting and mysterious work. However, in contrast to the works that this auction house tends to sell, Portrait of Edmond Belamy was created by an Artificial Intelligence (AI). This and other similar creations have been in the middle of academic and regulatory discussions relating to the nature of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) that could result from them. Unfortunately, these discussions tend to present ideas in absence of transitions among markets and/or a lack of proper understanding of certain IPRs like those related to derivative works. Based on these elements, the present document aims to present a proposal built upon a hypothetical AI Copyright (AI©R). To develop this latter, we focused our attention on the plastic arts market and employed the analysis of market imperfections under the light of a right that tends to be overlooked by artists, scholars and lawyers alike: the Droite de Suite (DDS). Building upon the analysis of this right, the AI©R has been structured as a 'label' aimed to address market imperfections, and to recognize the 'moral' right of the AI and the economic rights of the individuals and/or companies that could be empowered to claim them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the tort and copyright implications of the shredding of Banksy's artwork, "Girl With Balloon," under U.S. law. Topics discussed include Banksy's background, works of art, and the details behind the sale and shredding of "Girl With Balloon." It then outlines the elements of trespass to chattels, surveys Banksy's protections under The Visual Artist Rights Act of 1990, and explores the right of Banksy to prevent the purchaser from removing or disabling the shredder.

Almost $8 million--that is what the Crystal Bridges Museum paid for one work of contemporary art in November 2015. What did that museum get for that hefty sum? From a legal perspective, absolutely nothing. The work it purchased was just an idea, and ideas of this kind escape legal protection. Despite this lack of legal protection, the social norms of the art world lead large, sophisticated, experienced, and legally represented institutes to pay millions of dollars for this type of work. This Article is one of the first in legal scholarship to examine at depth those norms in this multibilliondollar industry. It does so by, inter alia, reporting on interviews the author conducted with industry insiders concerning their practices. This Article suggests that those norms create property-like rights in all artworks, whether or not they are legally protected, as well as an ongoing right of artists to partly control the use of their works. Those social norms fill a gap between the ways in which the contemporary art world understands creativity and the ways in which our legal system actually incentivizes creative endeavors. This Article analyzes the normative implications of these social norms and the gap they fill. First, it explains how those norms incentivize certain forms of creativity in a way that is more effective and efficient than property rights. Second, going beyond the art world, the Article shows how the social norms expose certain hidden assumptions in copyright authorship and their shortcomings. It suggests how the law can be improved to account for the richer description of creativity this Article provides. Third, the Article contributes to the ongoing debate concerning private property ownership. The art world provides sellers with significant post-sale control over their works in a way that the law commonly finds undesirable. That tension might justify rethinking the current legal rules that disincentivize post-sale control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Study Question: What are the attitudes and expectations of past oocyte donors concerning contact with their donor offspring and contact between donor offspring and their own children?Summary Answer: The large majority (95%) of open-identity oocyte donors, as well as voluntarily registered donors (registered before the Finnish 2007 ART law), expressed positive or neutral feelings towards contact with their donor offspring and mainly positive expectations towards contact between donor offspring and their own children.What Is Known Already: Although there is a growing support for openness and identity-release programmes in gamete donation, there is not much knowledge on how donors feel about potential contact with their offspring. Most previous studies have investigated donor expectations with a relatively short follow-up time, using small samples or participants in voluntary donor linkage services.Study Design, Size, Duration: A retrospective cross-sectional survey of all women who had donated oocytes between 1990 and 2012 at three fertility clinics in Finland was carried out in 2013. A self-administered questionnaire was sent out to a total of 569 former oocyte donors.Participants/materials, Setting, Methods: In total, 428 former oocyte donors answered a questionnaire assessing experiences and attitudes related to donation (response rate 75.2%). In this study, 358 donors who were unknown to the recipient were included. The mean follow-up time after the donation was 11.2 years. Before 2008, donors were non-identifiable but could voluntarily consent to release their identifying information to their donor offspring. After 2008, persons born as a result of gamete donation can, from the age of 18, receive information identifying the donor. Altogether 290 respondents had participated in a donation programme in 1990-2007 (before the Finnish ART-law), and 68 participated after the enactment of the ART-law, enabling us to compare attitudes by type of legislation during donation.Main Results and the Role Of Chance: Most voluntarily registered and open-identity donors welcomed or were neutral to potential contact with their donor offspring but were slightly more cautious towards contact between their own children and a donor-conceived child. Open-end comments revealed some ambiguity and uncertainty as to what to expect from such contact and feelings varied from neutral curiosity and interest to desire to meet the donor-conceived child.Limitations, Reason For Caution: It is not possible to assess whether the opinions of the study participants is representative of all donors in 1990-2012, as 25% of all contacted former donors did not respond to the survey.Wider Implications Of the Findings: This study is one of only a few studies among oocyte donors to evaluate long-term psychosocial consequences of the donation and expectations towards contact with donor offspring, using a large sample. Results from this study show that persisting concerns about adverse outcomes of identity release policies are largely unwarranted, but there is a need to develop counselling practices and material for identity-release donors about how to prepare for and adjust to potential contact with donor offspring.Study Funding/competing Interest(s): This study was supported by grants from the Medical Society Life and Health, and from the Otto A. Malm Foundation. The authors have no competing interests to report.Trial Registration Number: N/A. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on formal method, a current of art history that operated on the premise that the scientific study of art to be based. Topics discussed include historical manifestation of formal method is most closely tied with formalist tendencies in aesthetics; creation of contemporary art history as an independent scientific discipline; and element of visual experience acquire the different connections and meanings as part of an artwork. It also mention about the artistic laws and in painting, space was illusory and was projected onto the surface with the aid of special expressive signs that are drawn on the surface of a painting.

In this article, the author reflects upon art copyright. Particular focus is given to the author's observation that the copyright of art can be used as a form of monopoly. Additional topics discussed include how art copyright impacts the work of art historians, the stance of the CAA (College Art Association) on the topic and the copyright of work by the artist Piet Mondrian.

Technology today has an increasingly relevant role in areas traditionally considered restricted to humans. This position has been changing due to the increasing capacity of devices to carry out complex tasks without the need for any direct human intervention at all. An example of this can be found in devices that emulate, to a certain extent, human creative processes such as the conception of artistic works. These present a new (and from the commercial point of view interesting) reality: One where the human element is no longer considered irreplaceable in the creational stage of artistic works. This has a direct impact on the legal framework that surround these works; questioning whether the current legal framework of copyright is still capable of effectively protecting and incentivising human generated works. In the following article, this situation will be explored through a description of the potential impact of technology on human generated work and the position of current legal jurisdictions on this emerging landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on topics related the art regulation by Nazi. Topics mentioned include the social aspects of art, the management of art production, and the destruction of cultural property. Also mentioned was the artworks by artists Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, and Diego Velásquez that was exposed as fake by art journalist Andrew Decker.

The article offers information on topics related the National Socialist policy on art in 1937-38. Topics mentioned include the destruction of modern art in Germany, the social aspects of art, and the development of cultural policy. Also mentioned are the management of art production, the social aspects of German Romanticism, and the social aspects of culture.

Street art is visual art created in public spaces, many times at the behest of the communities in which the work is created. It is a derivative of graffiti, which is the illicit marking of public locations, usually on buildings or train cars. Retailers' appropriation of street art and graffiti is becoming commonplace, causing confusion in the market. As a result, street artists have filed an increasing number of copyright and trademark infringement lawsuits to protect their intellectual property rights. There is a debate regarding whether these artists are entitled to trademark protection given the expressive nature of their marks. Courts are reluctant to grant trademark protection since expressive works are traditionally protected under copyright law. Most street artists, as opposed to creators of "fine art," however, use marks in a trademark manner to build reputations and identify the source of their works. This Note argues that courts should broadly interpret the Lanham Act's "use in commerce" requirement to validate marks used by street artists. Street art substantially affects commerce and therefore should be covered by the Commerce Clause. Abroad interpretation furthers Congress's intent under trademark law to prevent consumer confusion. In the alternative, this Note contemplates treatment of street artists under the eleemosynary standard reiterated by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in 2001 in Planetary Motion Inc. v. Techsplosion, Inc., and considers the possibility of adding a famous mark exception to the use in commerce requirement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the document titled "Human Cultural Treasures (In'gan Munhwaje)," by Ye Yonghae. Topics mentioned include the state of Korean handicraft, the legislation in South Korea implemented to protect intangible heritage and to shape the way contemporary Koreans consider traditional handicraft, and the cultural practices of the country.

The article discusses how state moral rights laws to attempt to prevent the destruction of their public artworks. Topics discussed include enactment of the U.S. Federal Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA); ways in which community's right to preserve its heritage may trump a property owner's right to destroy; and legal solutions a community may use or adapt to preserve public art.

The article examines laws that immune loaned art from seizure in the U.S. and examines the necessity of legislative reform to continue international lending. It mentions that how museums attempt to rely on state protection, rather than federal protection, to secure immunity from seizure for their loaned works create problems. It also discusses the features of Immunity from Seizure Act and Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.

An introduction is presented in which editors discusses various articles within the issue on topics including maritime law, U.S. maritime policy and art law.

The article explains what street art is and laws concerning its ownership. Topics discussed include American property law, traditional doctrines of property law, ownership of street painting known as 'Mobile Lovers' and work of a street artist called Banksy, and the U.S. court case 'Popov v Hayashi.'

This essay deploys three modes of reading the relationship of visual art to law. In the first or objective mode of representation, we are attentive to the external referents of the artwork. In the second or subjective mode, we turn our attention to the internal or constitutive effects of the artwork – the way such depictions constitute affective relationships to legal and political power. In the third or critical mode, the ambivalence between “subject” and “object” effects unleashes the critical potential of the artwork. These three modes are each connected to different ways of understanding ideas of sentiment, sensibility, and sympathy. Analyzing J. M. W. Turner'sThe Slave Ship, I show how the three modes of reading interpret the painting differently and position the viewer differently in relation to it. But the representation of drowning bodies in the water is not merely an historical phenomenon. On the contrary, the ideological construction of images of drowning is an important issue around the world – most notably in relation to the figure of the asylum-seeker or refugee. Here too it is argued that the potential exists to develop a critical mode of reading these images, and to engage with them in ways that reorient our affective response from pity to responsibility, from mercy to justice, and from common sense to uncommon sensibility. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper uses Henry Miller's account, 'Via Dieppe-Newhaven', concerning the Parisian-based author's barred attempt to visit London in order to satisfy a desire 'to hear English spoken twenty-four hours of the day', as a means of exploring the intersection of language and proscription in the psychic space of the subject. Like Miller, people often undertake a journey, physical or metaphorical, in order to search for that which they presume to be lacking from their lives; that illusive thing capable of satiating desire and making their world a better, more tolerable place. But are all such journeys forever condemned to fail, and to what extent does law play a role in that failure? Within a psychoanalytical framework and with particular emphasis on the association between language, law and the subject formulated by Jacque Lacan, this paper will first examine the relationship language has with desire and its architect lack in order to explore the subject's motivation for undertaking the quest or journey, 'the bon voyage' as Miller refers to it, and ask whether or not it ever has an end as such. Secondly, consideration will be given to law (as proscription) and the manner in which it intersects the subject en route and helps to shape the many linguistic bumps, barriers, obstacles and hurdles that constitute the subject's 'road'; an intervention which inevitably disrupts, deforms, frustrates, even terminates, their journey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Street art, in its original and purest form, is artwork created without authorization, usually illegally, on either private or public property. Until recently, street art has been considered a social nuisance and is almost universally illegal, but it is now slowly becoming a "hot commodity" garnering press and social media attention. In recent years, local communities are increasingly beginning to value street art in their neighborhoods, and the art world has also caught on to the street art trend. As a result, street art is being copied and reprinted on clothing, posters, commercial items, and exhibited and sold in auction houses and galleries. Cities, such as Bristol, Bethlehem, and Taichung, are embracing street art by offering guided tours to show off their famous street art. Street art--no longer considered merely a social nuisance as it once was--is now becoming the "next big thing" in the art world and market. As street art evolves into commodity, the questions naturally are: who owns street art, and should intellectual property law protect street art from unauthorized copying, removal and sale, or destruction? This Paper attempts to answer these questions under U.S. law and under recent scholarship examining "negative spaces" in intellectual property. Specifically, this Paper concludes that street artists could attempt to use U.S. copyright law and VARA to protect their artwork from unauthorized copying and destruction. However, due to the nature of street art, and the ethos of street artists, intellectual property law is not an effective way to protect street art. Nevertheless, as has been evident in the past decade, innovation and creativity in street art will thrive even without the artificial exclusivity created by intellectual property. Street artists have been protecting their work through normative rules developed over the years, and communities are also looking for creative ways to protect street art from being destroyed or removed from their neighborhoods. The concern that the lack of formal intellectual property protection will "discourage" street art's creation is not a valid justification to impose or create stronger intellectual property protection for street art. Economic incentives are not necessary to motivate the creation--or the continued creative output--of street art. The evidence of this can be found on the streets of any big city, where street art continues tofiourish in a norms-based, low-IP world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Poleteismo (Polytheism) art installation of Mideo M. Cruz, part of "Kulô" exhibit at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) that opened in June 17, 2011, and U.S. jurisprudence on unconstitutionality of the heckler's veto. Topics discussed include citation of Article 201 violation on immoral exhibitions, under Revised Penal Code (RPC), and whether American heckler's veto framework is suitable for assimilation into Philippine art law.

The Chilean attorney Juan Egaña showed in his actions and essays a special interest in artistic expressions. Art and the juridical norms must work together and point to a same objective. This article is oriented to show the essentials that confirm that following ideas of Plato, Egaña conceived painting, sculpture, music and architecture put to the service of the organization of the society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spread of cultural consumption, which may be symptomatic of a gradual and general decline in education standards, has prompted much of legal thinking to privilege the «cultural» dimension of religious art over its religious dimension as such. Given this context, the legal nature of religious artworks is explored here using the methodology of a historical-legal, regulatory and jurisprudential perspective. This paper is framed by issues of intentionality and author copyright, the productive will(s) enacted in the legal transaction underlying a given artwork's creation, as well as the social perception of artistic production in different historical periods. In addition to concerns relating to property rights and the ranking or prioritization of criteria as regards current use(s), the purpose of this paper is to establish the essential legal elements of religious artworks as such. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is concerned with an extraordinary artwork created by a young Swedish art student, Anna Odell. Odell's re-enactment of an earlier suicide attempt on a bridge in Stockholm, filmed for an art installation, caused an outcry from the public and medical authorities and a court case that stimulated heated debate in the national press. Here I examine Odell's work for the ‘critical’ questions it in turn provokes about artistic creation and communication: the difficulties for the performance scholar in addressing the enactment when it is so generically hard to define; why the art/artist was found guilty of a ‘fraudulent practice’; and what might be revealed and further problematized by theorizing the enactment as a cultural, socio-political event. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA) controversially recognized artists' "moral rights" by protecting their work from alteration or destruction and by preventing the use of an artist's name on a work he did not create. While moral rights are frequently criticized as antithetical to the traditional economic framework of American intellectual property law, Henry Hansmann and Marina Santilli have suggested that moral rights can be justified economically because they vindicate artists' pecuniary interests. This Note, in contrast, argues that VARA also benefits the purchasing and viewing public, especially in an era of factory-made or assistant- produced art works. Specifically, moral rights, like trademark law, can reduce starch costs, ensure truthful source identification, and increase efficiency in the an market. This comparison between trademark law and moral rights shows that the sort of rights regime established by VARA is neither unique nor unprecedented in American law, and that it is highly economic in character. Thus, this Note hopes to reframe the dialogue surrounding moral rights, shifting it away from the classic "personhood" or anti-commodification" arguments that have undergirded the rhetoric up to this day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper two citations from the same paragraph of Ulpian's XVIII book on edict are discussed, one of which is preserved in Justinian's Digest and another in Collatio legum Mosaicarum et Romanarum. Texts differ in a part containing legal solution of the case, and it is obvious that at least one of two texts was edited. Author tries to determine which of them is interpolated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a copyright infringement lawsuit that was brought against the artist Richard Prince, the art dealer Larry Gagosian and the Gagosian Gallery. The lawsuit was filed after Prince presented a series of paintings at the Gagosian Gallery that used documentary photographs from the book "Yes Rasta," by Patrick Cariou. Several artists that have utilized images from outside sources in their work are discussed including Elizabeth Peyton, Eve Sussman and Jeff Koons.

In 2010, the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit confronted the novel question of when moral rights protections vest under the Visual Artists Rights Act. In Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art Foundation, Inc. v. Büchel, the First Circuit determined that the protections of the Visual Artists Rights Act begin when a work is "created" under the Copyright Act. This Note argues that this decision harms moral rights conceptually and is likely to result in unpredictable and inconsistent decisions. This Note proposes instead that these statutory protections should vest when an artist determines that his work is complete and presents it to the public. This standard is more consistent with the history of moral rights. Additionally, public access is necessary to justify a treatment of art different from that of other types of property, and it is a more essential component of moral rights than an artist's feelings of connection to his work. Finally, the legislative intent behind the Visual Artists Rights Act and the reasoning in previous judicial decisions are more accurately reflected by a public disclosure standard. Utilizing "creation" as a vesting point for moral rights is not supported by the history of the Visual Artists Rights Act and will result in uncertainty and inconsistency in future decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article considers the changing approaches to the freedom of artists to exhibit given the growing relationships between exhibiting galleries and state funding. It notes that art is not always clear to meaning and has particular conventions and specific roles within societies. It presents the conflicts that exist not only between artist and institution but within the individual's own mixed position as agent for an institution.

An essay is presented on Abbas Kiarostami's commentary on his documentary film "Close-Up." It highlights the complex interrogation of the film between law, art, and its subject. It explores how Kiarostami redefines cinema as a medium which aims to mediate between law and its subjects, between people and their fantasies.

The article focuses on arts policy in Australia. It mentions the lack of a well-defined regulation for the arts culture and discusses the efficacy and social value of government programs for the sector. It provides a contrast of arts from sports, stressing the success of Australian sports. It highlights the microeconomic reform, particularly the cancellation of the Place of Public Entertainment law which is inferred to induce the growth in local music.

The article discusses copyright issues with digitally accessible collections owned by art museums. Museums show a great interest in providing free digital access to their collections while still defining allowable and prohibited uses, through copyright law or licensing agreements. However, current law in the U.S. makes it difficult for museums to get the type of protection through copyright that would be ideal for digitally accessible works.

The article examines the protection available to visual artists in the form of art statutes. However, the artist-gallery relationship only continues to be fruitful for the artist as long as the gallery is able to sell the artist's works, and as long as the gallery remits payment to the artist as required. More than 30 U.S. states and the District of Columbia have implemented consignment statutes governing the artist-dealer relationship.

This article considers the legal difficulties associated with restituting Holocaust-looted art. Can such claims provide platforms for examining the associated cultural implications of both the looting and restitution programmes? Notwithstanding its centrality to Nazism and the Holocaust, looting's reversal was not a post-war Allied priority. Consequently, looting's painful after-effects leave a sense of unfinished business. Restitution traditionally envisages a high profile for law and, in particular, courts. Taken together with restitution's importance within reconciliation processes, this highlights that these cases are clearly located within transitional justice discourse. For example, property restoration is entwined with reconstitution of individual and group identities. The article concludes that restitution is crucial to successful completion of transitional justice processes. However, law's role must be re-imagined beyond the current adversarial/judicial paradigm which fails within its own limited understandings of restitution and hampers rather than enhances reconciliation processes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article introduces the new research project of the Geneva Art-Law Centre, which aims to study alternative dispute resolution (ADR) methods for art-related disputes. It gives a brief introduction on the topic of the research the project - the significant potential of ADR mechanisms in art law - and provides an overview of the growing international consideration for ADR in art-law matters. While types of art-related disputes vary considerably from case to case, certain common features may be identified to explain the need for adapted dispute resolution in this area. The Art-Law Centre's research project will involve the creation of an Art-Law ADR Database recording art-related disputes worldwide that were resolved by means of ADR methods, as well as a thorough case analysis. To illustrate the nature of the research project, this paper specifies the different project stages and gives examples of collected art-law cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the potential solution to the fair use debacle involving visual arts through the use of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) in Ohio. It explains that artists may register their works with U.S. Copyright Office and thereby agree to mandatory arbitration to resolve any potential conflicts. It then describes the problems with judicial interpretation of fair use doctrine for the medium of visual arts for better understanding.

This article suggests how law and the arts can shape a community's identity over time, by exploring the unique parallels between the common law and the folk music of the Appalachian region of the United States -- two cultural transplants from the British Isles to the early American frontier. Both preserve a backward-looking, cultural memory at the same time as they accommodate gradual changes in social conditions. Thus, this comparison argues that these essentially unwritten legal and musical traditions similarly transcend geographical and temporal distances, reflect and influence normative attitudes, and rely upon relatively open communicative processes in transmitting their core information. As living traditions, then, the common law and Appalachian folk music open small but important spaces for pluralistic discourse, where social conflicts can be reconciled over time and new identities forged from old ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the intellectual property (IP) rights of American Indians and their tribes in the U.S. It highlights the IP issues of American Indians, Alaskan Natives, and their tribal governments. It provides details on the Indian Arts and Crafts Act which is enacted to protect Indian artistic works and to assist their tribal economic development. It discusses the protection of tribal and individual names and their uses on commercial products, such as automobiles and businesses.

The article presents commentaries on the relationship between artist's unfinished works and copyright law in the U.S. It discusses the history of Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA) and Le Droit Moral in the country and abroad. It notes that VARA reflects a change in the established copyright law of the country as it recognizes that the visual artists have the rights in their works separate from economic rights. It tackles VARA's official extension to unfinished works and the relevance of the First Circuit's decision on the case of Christoph Büchel to the future of VARA.