Copyright, Innovation and the Internet

Tuesday, Thurs, 2:15pm - 3:30pm, C200

Professor B. Noveck; A-1005; bnoveck@nyls.edu

Readings and Assignments:

The syllabus contains a detailed outline of all readings. These are available both in course packet form and on-line. There is no textbook for this course. However, you will need to purchase two paperback books: Paul Goldstein, Copyright's Highway (2003) and The Dictionary of Computer and Internet Terms (2003).

You are expected to read and come prepared for each class. I will call on people at random. A class participation "grade bump" is available to those who voluntarily participate in class and/or on the class weblog.

Most weeks we will read statutory and caselaw as well as materials related to a relevant "Technology Case Study." Some of these materials refer to websites which are linked to from the syllabus but where I have only provided you with the cover page in your reading packet. You are expected to go on-line and follow the links on your own and to investigate other sources not listed. For each case study or industry listed, you should ask yourself how copyright law is affecting the development of technology and business strategies within that industry and how, in turn, are the technologies and business models likely to influence the shape of copyright law.

Please note: though this is not an engineering class, part of the purpose of this class is to give you a thorough grounding in the new technologies and business models challenging IP law. On the final, I will expect that you have grasp of the technologies we cover, including the basics of computer code, databases, digital television, DVD and DeCSS, webcasting, encryption, peer to peer, videogames and more.

Requirements:

• Readings and Class Participation Required
• 2 Weeks Participation in Class Weblog Discussion Required
• Take-Home Exam Required
• Participation Grade Bump Available for Voluntary Participation

Recommended

• Subscribe to at least one of the following weblawgs
  • Copyfight: The Politics of IP (Donna Wentworth)
  • LawMeme (Yale Law School Students)
  • The Importance Of (Ernest Miller)
  • Berkeley Intellectual Property WebLog
  • Freedom to Tinker (Ed Felten)
  • Copyfighter Musings Blog (Derek Slater)
  • Lessig Blog (Larry Lessig)
  • Current Copyright Readings (M. Claire Stewart)
  • QuickLinks (best international tech and IP news source) (Richard Swetenham)
• Try to keep up with business periodicals like Forbes, Fortune or WSJ that cover new technology
  • Rightscom.com covers digital content industries
• Try to keep up with WIRED magazine or subscribe to wirednews.com
• Download a "newsreader" to get headlines sent to you via RSS.

 

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Week 1 - Introduction to Innovation and the Law

Tuesday, January 11: Introduction - What Is Innovation?

Law: Copyright Basics

• U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Cl. 8
• Copyrightable Subject Matter 17 USC 102
• Paul Goldstein, Copyright's Highway, Chapters 1 (available in the bookstore)
• Five Scenarios for Digital Media in a Post-Napster World, Harvard Berkman Center, Research Publication 2003-07

Thursday, January 13: Original Work of Authorship?  The Internet and Challenges to the Notion of Originality and Authorship

Law Case Study: Copyrighting Code

• Baker v. Selden, 101 U.S. 99 (1879) (what is copyrightable subject matter) (excerpt)
• Lotus Development Corp. v. Borland Int'l, 49 F.3d 807 (1st Cir. 1995) (protecting functional elements) (excerpt)
• Sony Computer Entertainment v. Connectix Corp., 203 F.3d 596 (2000) (excerpt)

Technology Case Study: Source and Object Code

• What is source code? (webservices.com); see Webopedia Definition
• What is object code? (techtarget.com); see Webopedia Definition
• AmJUR 2d Copyright, Written in Object Code or Source Code? (Westlaw; p/w required)

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Week 2 - What is Copyrightable?

Tuesday, January 18: Idea v. Expression

Law

• 17 USC 105 , 17 USC 201
• Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone, 499 U.S. 340 (1991) (excerpt)
• New York Times v. Tasini, 533 U.S. 483 (2001) (excerpt)

Technology Case Study

• Marvel v. NCSoft complaint (pages 1-16; 30-end)

Thursday, January 20: Databases

Law:

• Consumer Access to information Act of 2004 (HR3872)
• Database and Collections of Information Misappropriations Act of 2003 (H.R. 3261)
• EU Database Directive 96/9/EC
• Copyright Office Report on the Legal Protection of Databases (1997, pps. 1-15)  

Technology Case Study: Databases and the Future of Government

• 17 USC 105
• Assessment Technologies v. WireData,--- F.3d ----, 2003 WL 22783823, 7th Cir.(Wis.) (Nov 25, 2003)

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Week 3 - Rights of Copyright Owners: Right of Reproduction

Tuesday, January 25:

Law: Right to Copy

• 17 USC 106 , 17 USC 117
• Arnstein v. Porter, 154 F.2d 454 (2d Cir. 1946) (infringing the right to copy)
• Positive Black Talk v. Cash Money Records (5th Cir. 2005)
• Paul Goldstein, Copyright's Highway, Chapter 3 and 4

Technology Case Study: Pianola Rolls and Copyright Law's Response

• History of the Pianola
• Browse web resources
• White-Smith Music Co. v. Apollo Co., 209 U.S. 1 (1908)

Thursday, January 27: When is a Copy Not a Copy?

Law and Technology Case Study: Copyright Treatment of Caching

• David Post, The Special Problem of Caching and Copyright Protection (1995) (Cyberspace Law Institute)
• Trotter Hardy, Computer RAM "Copies:" A Hit or Myth? Historical Perspectives on Caching as a Microcosm of Current Copyright Concerns, 22 U. Day. L. Rev. 425 (1997) (westlaw)

Technology Case Study

• Bruce Keller and Jeffrey Cunard, Rights Triggered by Uploading and Downloading, PLI Publication (Westlaw) (p/w required)
• David Akin, Music Groups Aim to Charge Internet Users (CTV.ca, Nov. 27, 2003)

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Week 4 - Rights of Distribution, First Sale Doctrine and Right to Prepare Derivative Works

Tuesday, February 1: Future of TV

Law: Right of Distribution and the First Sale Doctrine

• 17 USC 109
• R. Anthony Reese, The First Sale Doctrine in the Era of Digital Networks

Technology Case Study: Broadcast Flag and Digital Television

• FCC Press Release: FCC Adopts Anti-Piracy Protection for Digital TV, Nov. 4, 2003
• MPAA Broadcast Flag FAQ
• Susan Crawford, The Biology of the Broadcast Flag (in packet)
• The Broadcast Flag: An Introduction, Center for Democracy and Technology, Jan. 2004
• Implications of the Broadcast Flag: A Public Interest Primer (version 2.0), Center for Democracy and Technology (Dec. 2003)
• Brett A. Fausnett, Minds of Their Own: Copyright Protection Flags Violate our Rights to Fair Use, New Architect, Nov. 2002
• Additional resources at Consensus at Lawyerpoint Weblog (Optional: Browse)

Thursday, February 3: Right to Prepare Derivative Works - Future of Film

Law:

• 17 USC 102 , 17 USC 103
• Gerald O. Sweeney, Jr., John Williams, Mortal Kombat: The Impact of Digital Technology on the Rights of Studios and Actors to Images and Derivative Works, Lord, Bissell and Brook, Newsletter (revised from Entertainment Law Review).

Technology Case Study: Machinima, Guest Speaker, Paul Marino, Director Machinima Academy of Arts and Sciences, Tentative

• Machinima.org (Browse)
• Red versus Blue (Browse)
• Fiona Ng, Thinking Outside the Xbox for Films, LA Times, January 3, 2004
• Brad King, Machinima: Games Act Like Films, July 23, 2002, Wired
• Leander Kahney, Games Invade Hollywood's Turf, Wired, July 9, 2003
• FAQ on Machinima: What is Machinima?
• Lights, Camera, and Machinima

 

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Week 5 - Rights of Performance - The Future of Music

Tuesday, February 8: Music Copyright Review

Thursday, February 10: Digital Music

Law

• Audio Home Recording Act, 17 USC Chp.10 and 17 USC 115
• Recording Industry Association v. Diamond Multimedia, 180 F.3d 1072 (9th Cir. 1999)
• UMG v. MP3.com (S.D.N.Y. 2000)
• William Coats, Heather Rafter, Vickie Feeman, John Given, Streaming into the Future: Music and Video Online, Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Journal, volume 20, pp. 285-307. (skim)

Technology

• iTunes, eMusic + iPods

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Week 6 - Music Copyright and the Challenge of P2PThursday,

February 15

Law

• Fred Von Lohmann, P2P Whitepaper: P2P File Sharing and Copyright Law After Napster (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
• Clay Shirky Writings on P2P
• MGM v. Grokster
• In re Aimster Copyright Litigation, (7th Cir 2003) (Posner, J.)
• Induce Act

Thursday, February 17: Alternative proposals

Law:

• Content and Control: Assessing the impact of Policy Choices or Potential Online Business Models in the Music and and Film Industries, The Berkman Center Digital Medial Project, Jan 7, 2005
• William Fisher, "A Royalties Plan for File Sharing," (CNET, July 11, 2003)
• Short description of the Berkman Center's Alternative Compensation Systems Meeting, December 5, 2003
• Soros Foundation's Open Society Institute's page on Alternative Compensation Systems for Digital Media

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Week 7 - New Rights of Copyright Holders: ParaCopyright and Intermediaries

Tuesday, February 22: No Tuesday classes - Monday classes meet

Thursday, February 24: Digital Millennium Copyright Act (Subpoena Power)

• DMCA Summary from U.S. Copyright Office
• 17 USC 512
• RIAA v. Verizon (DC Circuit Opinion)
• Ellison v. Robertson, (9th Cir. 2003)

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Week 8 - New Rights of Copyright Holders: The Right to Use

Tuesday, March 1 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (Anti-Circumvention)

Law

• Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 USC 1201
• Universal City, v. Reimerdes, 273 F.3d 429 (2nd Cir. 2001) United States v. ElcomSoft & Sklyarov
  • Complaint
• Consumers, Schools and Libraries, Digital Rights Management Awareness Act of 2003 , H.R. 1621 (Brownback Bill) (2003)
  • Brownback Explanatory Statement

Technology Case Study: DVD

• What is Encryption? (signalguard.com)
  • Browse additional web resources
• Michelle Delio, What's so Free About this DVD?, WiredNews, March 28, 2003
• FAQ from DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA) explains CSS and DeCSS
  • The Content Scrambling System (CSS): A Technical Description
  • Content Scrambling System

Thursday, March 3

Law

• 17 USC 1202
• EFF Whitepaper, Unintended Consequences: Five Years Under the DMCA (September 24, 2003)
• Katie Dean, Shift-Key Case Rouses DMCA Foes, WiredNews, Oct 11, 2003
• Lionel S. Sobel, DRM as an Enabler of Business Models: ISPs as Digital Retailers, 18 Berkeley Tech. L.J. (2003)

Technology Case Study: Digital Rights Management & E-Books (browse)

• Resources on DRM from Berkeley (browse)
• How Much Copyright Protection Does the Internet Need? The Economist.com (Jan 23, 2003)
• John Gilmore, What's Wrong With Copy Protection (16 February 2001).
• Simson Garfinkel, The Rights Management Trap. (MIT Technology Review, November 2002).
• Showdown In The Digital Rights Corral, Forbes.com Article

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Week 9 - Copyright Infringement and P2P

Tuesday, March 8:

Thursday, March 10:

Law

• Newmark v. Turner Broadcasting, Inc. et al, 226 F.Supp.2d 1215 (C.D.Cal.,2002) (ReplayTV)
  • Paramount Pictures v. ReplayTV & SonicBlue (Complaint) (original, related case)
  • Newmark v. Turner (Complaint seeking declaratory relief)
• EFF Case Archives

Technology Case Study: PVR

• Aaron A. Hurowitz, Copyrights in the New Millennium: Is the Case Against Replay TV a New Betamax for the Digital Age?, 11 COMLCON 145 (2003)
• Fred Von Lohmann, Replay TV Zaps Ads and Permits Show Swapping: Get Ready for the Next Big Copyright Battle
• Scott Woolley, Zap!: The Day May Finally be Near When Digital Technology Eviscerates a $60 Billion Ad Business. How will the Networks Survive?, Forbes, Sept. 29, 2003

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Week 10 - Defenses to Copyright Infringement: Fair Use, Misuse and Criticism

Tuesday, March 15:

Law

• Video Pipeline v. Buena Vista Home Entertainment, 342 F.3d 191 (3rd Cir. 2003)
• Recommended: Dan Burk, Anti-Circumvention Misuse, 50 UCLA L. Rev. 1095 (2003) (skim) (on copyright misuse defense)

Thursday, March 17:

Law

• Huntsman v. Sodebergh, (CleanFlicks Case)
• Defendant Studio Statement Clarifying Claims (pdf)
• Motion Picture Studio Response Brief (pdf)
• EFF Amicus Brief (txt)
• Family Movie Act of 2005 (s.167)
• Technology Case Study: Digital Works & Digital Annotations & Fan's Eye DVDs
• Ernest Miller, DGA Pres to Duchamp: You Scoundrel (LawMeme, Sept. 26, 2002) (read all articles in the series)
• Ray Richmond, They're Editing My Film (DGA Magazine, Sept. 2002)
• Trilogy Studio's MovieMask Software
• Emily Nussbaum, A DVD Face Off Between the Official and the Homemade (NYT, Dec 21, 2003)

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March 21 - March 26: No Classes, Spring Break

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Week 11 - The Future of Computing

Tuesday, March 29

Law

• Yochai Benkler, Coase's Penguin

Technology Case Study: Linux and Open Source Computing

• Eric Raymond, The Cathedral in the Bazaar, First Monday Article
• "Leader of the Free World: How Linus Torvalds Became the Benevolent Dictator of Planet Linux, the Biggest Collaborative Project in History" Wired Magazine, Nov. 2003
• What is Free Software? What is Open Source?
• Free Software Foundation
• Open Source Initiative
• "Open Source Everywhere" Wired Magazine, Nov. 2003

Thursday, March 31

Law: Alternative Licensing

• GNU General Public License (open software license)
  • GPL in plain text
  • GPL FAQ
• Analysis of Prevalent Open Source Software Licenses (by a Harvard 2L)
• Creative Commons License (some rights reserved)
  • Creative Commons Website
  • Creative Commons Tutorials
  • Creative Commons, Public Library of Science License

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Week 12 - New Challenges: The Future of Licensing/Radio/Webcasting

Tuesday, April 5

Licensing Exercise 

Thursday, April 7

Technology Case Study: MIT LAMP Project

• 17 USC 114
• LAMP Project Web Site
  • Keith Winstein, Engineering an Accessible Music Library: Technical and Legal Challenges (May 26, 2003) (LAMP Technical/Legal Paper)
• Loudeye.com

Sattelite Radio Discussion

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Week 13 - New Challenges: The Future of Fun: Videogames and Virtual Worlds

Tuesday, April 12

Law: Videogames as Intelletual Property: Reverse Engineering? Hacking?

• Lewis Galoob Toys v. Nintendo, 964 F.2d 965 (9th Cir. 1992)
• Blizzard v. BnetD

Technology Case Study: Game Emulators & Game Mods

• Blizzard's FAQ
• Ernest Miller, LawMeme Analysis of the Technology and the Case
• What Is Reverse Engineering?
• Emulator Overview & History 
• Games Made for Remaking, NY Times, Dec 04, 2003
• Reverse Engineering and the Rise of Electronic Vigilantism: Intellectual Property Implications of "Lock-Out" Programs, Julie E. Cohen, 68 S. Cal. L. Rev. 1091 (1995)
• DOJ Seizes ISONEWS Site Over XBox Mod Chip Sales, The Register, Feb. 26, 2003

Thursday, April 14

Law: Intellectual Property Within Videogames

Technology Case Study: Second Life and MMPORGs

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Week 14 - Conclusions

Tuesday, April 19

• Dan Hunter & F. Gregory Lastowka, Amateur-to-Amateur

Thursday, April 21

• Jack Balkin, "Digital Speech and Democratic Culture: A Theory of Freedom of
  Expression for the Information Society" Yale Law School Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series, No. 63 (forthcoming NYU L. Rev.) 1-22, 42,48, 58-75

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Week 15 - Review Questions

Art & Music Sampling