In at least a few posts advocating for the right of the copyright holder to control the use of works for reasons other than money, I have raised hypothetical scenarios in which particularly odious entities make use of works in ways that are uniquely offensive to the soul of the original. Most recently, I employed such hypotheticals on the subject of ...
For quite some time, too long perhaps, a considerable amount of academic scholarship has trended toward focus on copyright’s negative effects, or at least doubt its positive effects, without adequate analysis of the creative process itself. When viewing the market, and especially creators, many academic views I have encountered appear to look solely at finished works, how the market interacts ...
I can’t help but be aware of a disturbing harmonic buzz in my head when I read two stories on the same day that point to a particular digital age dichotomy. Remember Sarah Jones? You might have helped her story go viral. Sarah was a camera assistant, who was killed when she was struck by a train during filming of ...
It’s another Independence Day weekend, and I can’t help but notice that we find ourselves this year grappling with some unfortunate consequences of liberty run amok. We’ve got open-carry nuts sporting assault rifles in department stores and coffee shops to prove how free they are; and we’ve got the supreme court granting business owners the right to discriminate against employees ...
This week, I sat on a panel at Harvard University as part of on-going series of roundtable discussions hosted by the USPTO about a variety of copyright issues in the digital age. The topic of our conversation was whether first sale doctrine ought to be expanded in the digital age. In case you don’t speak lawyer, first sale doctrine has ...
