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The fair use doctrine allows the use of copyrighted works without the permission of the copyright owner. Fair use is a legal concept, and the test for determining if a use is fair is contained in the Copyright Act of 1976. But fair use is also an ethical concept because it involves a determination of when it is fair to use someone's property. This article discusses the librarians' legal obligation of fair use and the librarians' ethical obligation of fair use and the similarities and differences between them, concluding that the librarians' ethical obligation may be greater than their legal obligation. The article also suggests principles which librarians can advocate for in copyright policies to implement the ethics of fair use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides an empirical study of fair use in cases involving musical works. Topics discussed include number of music cases decided under the 1976 Copyright Act; ways in which Fair use is a common defense in copyright cases involving all sorts of works, ranging from literary works, a category that includes computer programs, to works of visual art; and the U.S. Supreme Court's seminal 1994 fair use decision in "Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music."

The paper intends to point the frictions and difficulties regarding the exception for private copying, from a legislative and technologic perspective. The analysis begins with the study of the caselaw of the European Court of Justice, followed by the examination and comparison of the Spanish and British systems of compensation. The analysis aims to show the issues present in the European system, highlighted by the legislative process of both countries. Hereafter, some of the more pressing defects of the supranational system of compensation will be exposed, so that legislative, financing and approach alternatives can be offered for the exception for private copying. This essay seeks to propose a reinvention of the current regulation, as well as exposing its obsolescence and hurdles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the past decade, the Internet has played an increasingly central role in social dialogue and popular culture. Through the promulgation of "like" and "heart" features on online platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, individuals are encouraged to affirmatively engage with content posted by other users to share and debate their opinions in a public forum. Consequently, many consumers assume that content posted on the Internet is inherently free for the taking. This perceived free culture, however, materially conflicts with content creators' interests in maintaining control over the reproduction and distribution of their works. Not surprisingly, a direct result of the increased popularity and relevance of social media websites has been an uptick in copyright infringement lawsuits brought by professional content creators against the downstream users of their copyrighted content. In response to such copyright infringement suits, several downstream users have asserted the fair use affirmative defense under § 107 of the Copyright Act. In the face of this changing social media landscape, this Comment proposes that when analyzing the first factor of a fair use affirmative defense in a copyright infringement action, courts should broaden the conceptualization of transformative purpose in the digital environment. Specifically, courts should recognize social commentary as a presumptively transformative purpose. Additionally, this Comment proposes that courts should consider attribution when assessing market harm to the copyright owner, the fourth factor considered by courts in a fair use analysis. By including attribution as a factor weighing in favor of fair use, secondary users will be incentivized to follow best practices on the Internet. Furthermore, copyright holders will be better able to mitigate the financial exploitation of their works on social media, while simultaneously allowing the general public (who most often share content for noncommercial purposes) to engage in social dialogue on the web. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses what the author refers to as the antitrust law implications of America's private copyright infringement enforcement tool known as the Copyright Alert System as of 2017, and it mentions the legal aspects of peer-to-peer file sharing. The U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act and a fair use copyright law doctrine are addressed, along with the First Amendment to America's Constitution and the nation's Sherman Antitrust Act.

The article discusses America's fair use copyright law doctrine in relation to the takedown demands and copyright infringements claims that are associated with the Let's Play (LP) video game demonstration recordings and reaction videos which can be accessed on the YouTube video-sharing service, and it mentions a call for U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act reform. Copyright protection for Internet videos is examined, along with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976.

YouTube has quickly become the dominant player in the Internet video sharing platform market. To keep its leading position, it created an internal automated system to police potential copyright infringements known as Content ID. Generally, that system functions similarly to third-party computer automated systems that send takedown requests, yet it is exempt from liability for removing lawful videos under a safe harbor provided by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 ("DMCA"). Although some industry experts first championed Content ID, many now question whether it unfairly favors copyright holders and YouTube itself at the expense of content creators and the greater Internet community. This Note asserts that a Content ID match is equivalent to a formal takedown notice under the DMCA, and that Content ID should thus have to consider fair use prior to issuing a Content ID match. This Note then argues that the DMCA's safe harbor provisions should be amended to require websites utilizing internal automated systems to consider fair use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have long assessed "anticommons" problems in creative and innovative environments. An anticommons develops when an asset has numerous rights holders, each of which has a right to prevent use of the asset, but none of which has a right to use the asset without authorization from the other rights holders. Hence, when any one of those rights holders uses its rights in ways that inhibit use of the common asset, an anticommons may result. In the software world, scholars have long argued that anticommons problems arise, if at all, because of patent rights. Copyright, on the other hand, has not been viewed as a significant source of anticommons problems. But this Article argues that copyright is an increasingly significant cause of anticommons concerns in the software context for at least two related reasons. First, the increasingly collaborative nature of much modern software innovation means that any given software resource is subject to dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of distinct copyright interests, each of which can ultimately hamper use of the software resource. While collaborative innovation licensing models help reduce the threat of any given copyright holder restricting use of the software resource, these licensing models do not altogether eliminate such risks and, in fact, actually create risks of holdup and underuse that have previously received less attention than they are due. Second, interoperability needs in the growing "Internet of Things" and "cloud" economies demand sharing and reuse of software for these ecosystems to work. Yet because these technological ecosystems implicate thousands of different parties with distinct copyright interests in their software, the threat of any one of those parties ultimately using its rights in ways that inhibit the successful development and use of the Internet of Things and cloud economies looms large. In order to illustrate some of these anticommons problems in practice, this Article examines a recent high-profile software copyright dispute between Oracle and Google. As a possible solution to these types of problems, this Article assesses the merits of more explicitly adapting copyright's fair use defense to the collaborative and interconnected nature of modern software innovation. The Article concludes by arguing that copyright disputes in other fields of creativity characterized by collaborative, interconnected development may also merit such fair use adaptations. Otherwise, anticommons problems may increasingly affect those fields as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses what the author refers to as a theoretical approach to balancing the intellectual property (IP) rights of musicians and other artists with regards to audio remixes and the online audio-sharing services provided by firms such as SoundCloud Ltd. The legal aspects of music sampling are examined, along with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, a fair use legal defense to copyright infringement, and music licensing. The late philosopher John Locke's labor theory is assessed.

Copyright law's current fair use landscape is riddled with unclear standards and old considerations forced upon new media. This is especially problematic in the context of digital appropriation of art from online social media platforms--an issue highlighted by Richard Prince's exhibit "New Portraits," in which he appropriated strangers' Instagram photos for his own profit. Unless this situation is remedied, digital content creators will effectively lose their statutory copyright protections. Thus, when considering digital appropriation cases, courts should require a transformation of content rather than purpose, should elevate the weight of the fourth statutory factor, and should reinstate the "comment upon " standard for works of parody and satire. Other scholars have proposed changes to the fair use doctrine, but none adequately protect first-order digital content creators. As such, this Note proposes a reinterpretation of the fair use factors in light oj digital appropriation and social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ever-expanding reach of trademark law and the narrowing strictures of trademark law's fair use doctrine demand new ways of thinking about defenses in artistic use cases. Trademark law currently acknowledges two types of expressive use as "fair": works that target or comment upon a trademarked work itself and works that somehow "transform" the original. Defending a claim of infringement on these grounds is lengthy, fact-intensive, and, above all, expensive--thereby chilling protected expression. These defenses also do not adequately capture numerous modes of modern-day artistic expression, many of which do not even recognize a unique "original" to comment upon. This Article argues for increasing the use of genericide or genericness defenses in expressive use cases. Genericide is a doctrine in which a formerly-protectable mark is held to be unprotectable because it no longer signifies the source or producer of the product (e.g., Aspirin as a product made by Bayer) but instead a category or genus of product (aspirin as pain reliever that a generic manufacturer can call their product). Defendants in expressive use cases should argue that the formerly-protectable mark has become generic in a specific market or industry as signifying not the producer but a category or genus of product--for example, that Cristal has become, in the rap industry, generic for champagne. Rather than claiming transformativeness or critical commentary in the hopes of winning a fair use defense, artists should emphasize that they did not, for example, reference Louis Vuitton to target or comment on either the mark itself or its producer--but rather that Louis Vuitton has become generic in the art industry as a general way of signaling a luxury product. This defense would have the advantage of invalidating a trademark once and for all within a specific industry. The law's present focus on forcing every expressive use into the fair use defense does art a disservice by recognizing only one type of expressive use--parody--as "fair." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the need for proposing an ideal model for digital archives with the application of fair use. Topics discussed include need to analyze whether the wholesale digital reproduction of copyrighted works is more likely than not to count as fair use, issues related to copyright infringement claims and information on the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976.

The article discusses the interpretation of the defence of fair dealing 'for the purpose of parody or satire', a defence that was added to the Australian Copyright Act 1968 in 2006. Topics discussed include implications of the European Union (EU) and the U.S. jurisprudence for understanding the scope of the parody/satire fair dealing defence in the Copyright Act 1968 ; copyright law's system of rights and rewards; and use of a copyright-protected work is a fair dealing.

The article discusses the impacts of robots on American copyright law as of 2016, and it mentions changes to the U.S. fair use copyright law doctrine, as well as the author's claim that reading performed by computers (robotic readership) does not count as copyright infringement under the law. The legal concept of substantial similarity is addressed in relation to human readership and copyright infringement in the U.S. Non-expressive reading and the legal aspects of copyists are examined.

Digital learning is being transformed by changes in copyright law. This article discusses the author's personal journey as a copyright education activist through two rounds of rulemaking proceedings before the Copyright Office concerning the anti-circumvention provisions of one part of the copyright law, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which is the law that exempts YouTube and other ISPs from liability from copyright claims and criminalizes the circumvention of digital rights management (DRM) software that protects DVDs from being copied. Every three years, petitioners can claim their rights have been compromised by the current law; the Copyright Office pores over the petitions, weighs the pros and cons, and then offers recommendations to the Librarian of Congress, who ultimately grants or denies the exemptions. The author was successful in expanding the rights of K-12 teachers to legally "rip" DVDs by using the Section 1201 rulemaking process, which is one of the only significant ways that educators can expand their rights to use copyrighted material for teaching and learning purposes. By asserting the rights of K-12 educators to circumvent encryption to make fair use of copy-protected DVDs and online digital media for teaching and learning, the law begins to move beyond the needs of large-scale content owners to include the rights of educators and students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the YouTube era overdubbing parodies, produced by juxtaposing new ironical auditory plot lines and screenplays on famous video motions, represent a noteworthy creative reality. In Italy, the lack of a legislative regulation of parodies causes ambiguities over the infringing status of overdubbing creations in respect to the copyright in the parodied work. This article shows how overdubbing practices exasperated the fragile construction on which Italian courts have upheld a general "freedom of parodying'', while also urging Italian legislative bodies to take prompt action so that "freedom to operate" is guaranteed to parodists, whose contributions play a key-role in enriching our societies through the amusing, but in the meantime cathartically reflexive, instrument of laughter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning from the failure of the previous attempt in 2012, Hong Kong's Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2014 introduces parody exception to accommodate the public's concerns about free speech, yet rejects the user-generated content (UGC) exception. By reference to practices and debates in other jurisdictions, the article offers a critical examination of Hong Kong's bold yet conservative move in redefining copyright' fair dealing doctrine. The article suggests that, caught between parody and UGC exceptions in the context of free speech, the 2014 Bill indicates an unfortunate confusion in applying the three-step test, which leads to its failure to achieve a balance between copyright holders and users in the era of the "participative web". Extending the author's exclusive derivative right to digital network environment with limited exception to works for parody purpose only, copyright protection, even after the 2014 Bill, continues to be the end rather than beginning of creation in the digital network environment. The article suggests that the success of the 2014 Bill depends on a careful revisiting of the fair dealing doctrine and accommodating new author-user dynamics in the digital age, rather than making unprincipled concessions to the rhetoric of free speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses America's fair use copyright doctrine and the nation's Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in relation to the problems that are associated with the use of the Content ID automated digital fingerprinting system to regulate user-generated Internet content on video-sharing services such as YouTube. The legal liability of Internet service providers for copyright infringement by website users is examined, along with the flagging of non-infringing videos.

The article discusses the legal aspects of online music and creative collaborative sharing activities in relation to various copyright-related conflicts of laws in places such as the U.S. Great Britain, and France. Constitutional rights and freedom of expression are addressed, along with Internet-related copyright infringement and a right to privacy. Intranet laws are examined, as well as German copyright law and a fair use doctrine under the U.S. Copyright Act.

The article discusses the history of a fair use copyright law doctrine in the U.S. as of 2015, and it mentions the impacts that the late author J.D. Salinger and the Church of Scientology have had on a transformative use legal concept in America. U.S. copyright laws and legal standards are mentioned, along with several copyright-related litigation matters including Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music Inc. and Seltzer v. Green Day Inc. The history of English copyright law is also examined.

Dr. Martin Luther King wrote and delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech more than fifty years ago. When he obtained copyright protection on the speech in 1963, Dr. King (and later his estate) would have expected the copyright to last a maximum of fifty-six years. That fifty-six-year copyright has become a ninety-five-year copyright, thanks to lengthy duration extensions enacted by Congress in the mid-1970s and late 1990s. As a result, the copyright on the "I Have a Dream" speech will not expire until the end of 2058. Because the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. and its affiliates have closely guarded the speech in a copyright enforcement and licensing sense, the public seldom sees more than snippets of one of the most highly regarded speeches in history. Greater public exposure to the full speech would serve important purposes of the sort recognized by Congress in the fair use section of the Copyright Act. However, those interested in borrowing from or otherwise using the speech have tended to drop their plans or have obtained a costly license from the King Estate or one of the affiliated entities--even when the users may had have a plausible right under the fair use doctrine to borrow from or use the speech without obtaining a license. With the copyright on the speech not expiring until the end of 2058, there is a danger that the snippets-only nature of the public's exposure to the speech will remain the status quo for more than another four decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the appellate decision in Cariou v. Prince related to assisted appropriation artists in proving the validity of artwork by the fair use doctrine. Topics discussed include interchange between appropriation art and the fair use doctrine, validity of appropriation in the cases Rogers v. Koons and Blanch v. Koons and the standards which is beneficial for the perpetuation of artwork and creativity in general.

The article offers information on the history, development and significant right to use of copyright law for protection of cloud computing and virtualization services under the Copyright Act of 1790 of the U.S. Topics discussed include the doctrine of fair use, legislative reform to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and the scope of utilitarian theory for copyright protection for software and music licensing.

Apple invites us to "Rip. Mix. Bum." while Sony exhorts us to "make.believe." Digital service providers enable us to create new forms of derivative work--work based substantially on one or more preexisting works. But can we, in a carefree and creative spirit, remix music, movies, and television shows without fear of copyright infringement liability? Despite the exponential growth of remixing technologies, content holders continue to benefit from the vagaries of copyright law. There are no clear principles to determine whether any given remix will infringe one or more copyrights. Thus, rights holders can easily and plausibly threaten infringement suits and potentially chill much creative activity. This Article examines the impact of copyright doctrine on remixes with an emphasis on crowdsourced projects. Such an analysis is particularly salient at this juncture because consumers are neither as passive nor as isolated as they once were. Specifically, large-scale crowdsourced projects raise issues relating to copyright and fair use on a scope and scale never before imaginable. As such, this Article reflects on the particular problems raised by the growth of crowdsourced projects and how our copyright regime can best address them. We conclude that future legal developments will require a thoughtful and sophisticated balance to facilitate free speech, artistic expression, and commercial profit. To this end, we suggest a number of options for legal reform, including: (1) reworking the strict liability basis of copyright infringement for noncommercial works, (2) tempering damages awards for noncommercial or innocent infringement, (3) creating an "intermediate liability" regime that gives courts a middle ground between infringement and fair use, (4) developing clearer ex ante guidelines for fair use, and (5) reworking the statutory definition of "derivative work" to exclude noncommercial remixing activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses cases decided by the U.S Supreme Court in trademark and unfair competition matters under the U.S Lanham Act of 1946 during the period June 3, 2013 to January 21, 2015. Topics discussed include petition for a writ of certiorari in case B & B Hardware, Inc. v. Hargis Industries, Comedy III Productions, Inc. v. Gary Saderup, Inc. based on transformative use standard and Rogers v. Grimaldi that addressed trademark infringement claims conflict with free expression interests.

Trade secret law arose to help companies protect confidential information (e.g., the Coca-Cola formula) from competitors seeking to copy their innovative efforts. But companies increasingly use trade secret law to block a wide swath of information from the scrutinizing eyes of consumers, public watchdog groups, and potential improvers. Companies can do this, in part, because trade secret law lacks clear limiting doctrines that consider the social benefits of unauthorized use. For example, trade secret law makes no allowance for the departing employee that uses proprietary information to create a substantially improved product or disclose public health risks. This Article argues that trade secret law's indifference to the social benefits of unauthorized use stands in contrast to other intellectual property doctrines, like patent and copyright. Copyright law incorporates the affirmative defense of "fair use," which aims to protect a variety of unauthorized but socially beneficial uses of another's copyrighted work (e.g., educational uses). To a lesser extent, patent law's reverse doctrine of equivalents and remedies analysis direct courts to consider the social benefits of a defendant's technological improvement. Such limiting doctrines act as safety valves to reconcile intellectual property rights with competing cumulative innovation and First Amendment interests. This Article demonstrates the merits of a similar safety valve in trade secret law and argues that courts should adopt a multi-factor "trade secret fair use" analysis to better address these competing concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The right of publicity is an established legal doctrine that grants individuals the exclusive right to control the commercial use of their image. Though it has many important and laudable uses, one unfortunate consequence of the right of publicity is that it restricts artists' abilities to portray real persons in their works. In so doing, the right of publicity directly conflicts with the First Amendment protections of an individual's freedom of expression. While the U.S. Supreme Court addressed this tension in Zacchini v. Scripps-Howard Broadcasting Co., the Court did not create a clear standard for balancing the interests of each right. Without guidance from the Supreme Court, lower courts have developed four tests for balancing the right of publicity against the First Amendment: the relatedness test, the predominant purpose test, the transformative use test, and the ad-hoc balancing test. Although most courts use only a single test to analyze the conflict between the right of publicity and the First Amendment, the Sixth Circuit, in ETW Corp. v Jireh Publishing Inc., relied on both the transformative use test and the ad-hoc balancing test to form its analysis. This Note proposes a test based on the Sixth Circuit approach, which creates a predictable standard for balancing the First Amendment against the right of publicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the exception in the Copyright Act for user-generated content (UGC) considering economic and moral rights of authors of existing works used in the creation of fan fiction and other UGC works. It mentions payment to the author of an existing work if substantial part of the work being used in creation of a UGC work and being spread in public through an intermediary and also mentions to add pastiche in the fair dealing section of the Act for derivative works.

The article discusses the role of moral rights on the noncommercial user-generated content according to the Canadian Copyright Modernization Act. Topics discussed include using existing works to create new works without infringing copyright if doing solely for non-commercial purposes, using the author's moral rights to compel the transformative expression of users, and exploring the difficulties of enforcing moral rights in the era of digital media.

The article focuses fair use doctrines on the creative interests of female fan fiction writers in the U.S., as of May 2014. Topics include an introduction to the world of fandom and fan fiction, an explanation on the predominance of female participants in fandom, rationales behind and the process of creating fan fiction, and a copyright law relevant to fan fiction, including the fair use doctrine. It also discusses the inadequacy and inherent unfairness of the fair use doctrine.

The article focuses on the creativity exception in copyright law, which governs creative works such as fan fiction, parody, and appropriation. Topics include the economic effect of creative exceptions on the market of the derived work, the integration of pre-existing copyrighted materials into new creative works, and the fair use doctrine.

The article focuses on the publication doctrine, which is the offering of materials to the public, under U.S. copyright law in 2014. Topics include the limits of the public domain, copyright uncertainty, and how copyright publication laws have prevented the release of art into the public domain. Information is provided on the doctrine of fair use.

The article discusses a fair use copyright law doctrine in America in relation to the licensing of derivative fiction, focusing on the possible latent effects of the commercialization of fan fiction in the U.S. The potential applicability of American copyright laws to fictional characters is addressed, along with the claim that moral rights to not exist under U.S. copyright law. The concept of "doctrinal feedback" is mentioned, along with the legal aspects of creative writing in America.

An essay is presented on U.S. copyright law and the legal aspects of 3D printing as of 2014, focusing on a response to the article "CAD’s Cradle: Untangling Copyrightability, Derivative Works, and Fair Use in 3D Printing" by Kyle A. Dolinsky which appears in the same issue. Magic and technological advancements are mentioned, along with potential copyright protections for computer-aided design (CAD) files. Copyright infringement and the U.S. Copyright Act of 1909 are examined.

A response is provided to the article "CAD’s Cradle: Untangling Copyrightability, Derivative Works, and Fair Use in 3D Printing" by Kyle A. Dolinsky which appears in the same issue of the journal, focusing on various intellectual property issues in relation to 3D printing. The author argues that libraries should not be held responsible for patron copying using 3D printers which exceeds the law. 3D food printers and the U.S. National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) are examined.

The article discusses the legal aspects of computer-aided design (CAD) files in the U.S. as of 2014, focusing on copyrightability, derivative works, and America's fair use copyright law doctrine in relation to 3D printing. The relationship between technological advances and American copyright law is addressed, along with a legal case involving the Universal City Studios Inc. entertainment firm and video cassette recorders (VCRs). The U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act is also examined.

The article discusses various computer crimes in America as of September 2013, focusing on the legal aspects of topics such as denial of service attacks, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and criminal violations of the U.S. Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996. Copyright infringement claims under the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act are addressed, along with federal jurisdiction, state criminal codes in America, and the fair use legal doctrine.

The article discusses the legal aspects of plagiarism and academic dishonest, particularly with regard to insufficient or missing citation and attribution of sources and quotations. The author primarily outlines the relevant provisions in the Urheberrechtsgesetz (Gesetz über Urheberrecht und verwandte Schutzrechte, UrhG), the copyright and intellectual property laws of Germany. Issues addressed include the legal definition of a creative work, the fair use provisions of the UrhG, and the possible civil and criminal repercussions of an author's failure to comply with copyright.

The essay discusses issues of fair use and copyright in the U.S., particularly focusing on its implications for scholarly publishing. It addresses contradictory laws about copyright protection and freedom of speech in the U.S. Constitution, noting the resulting case-by-case nature of copyrighted material usage. It explores the intricacies of the U.S. Copyright Code.

The article discusses the legal aspects of newspaper reports that are distributed on the Internet without the consent of the copyright holders as of September 2012, focusing on an analysis of U.S. copyright laws and their application to newspapers and the Internet, as well as the fair use legal doctrine. Several legal cases are addressed, including the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit fair use case Wainwright Securities Inc. v. Wall Street Transcript Corp.

The article focuses on U.S. federal court decisions since 1985 concerning fair use claims in copyright infringement lawsuits, with particular focus on the lawsuits placed by Nevada-based law firm Righthaven. The author discusses the debate of using news content online, analyzes the relationship between traditional media outlets and digital media technology, and examines how courts have decided if unauthorized re-publication of news stories is considered copyright infringement or is protected as fair use.