53 research outputs found
The Philosophical Foundations of Investment-Driven IP: On Reason, Faith, and Pluralism
No full textIt seems, once again, that intellectual property law is shifting beneath our feet. As Robert Merges put it a decade ago, if IP were a city, then the old city centre is today ‘surrounded by new buildings and new neighbourhoods, knots of urban growth, budding in every direction, far off into the distance’.1 That old city centre was built during the nineteenth-century age of possessive individualism.2 Ideologies of the romantic author and sole inventor helped erect the city’s foundational principle that one deserves ownership in the products of mental labour.3 Yet, in the early twentieth century, US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis could still write that ‘the general rule of law is, that the noblest of human production – knowledge, truths ascertained, conceptions, and ideas – become, after voluntary communication to others, free as the air to common use’.4 A century later, that general rule rings less true.5 Investment-driven rights, and investment-driven extensions to old rights, have helped expand the city’s boundaries. What started out as a small cadre of related rights, sui generis rights, and quasi-IP rights now contribute to an urban sprawl of new neighbourhoods spreading as far as the eye can see. New denizens – the trivially creative and insignificantly innovative goods explored in this volume – now are protected inside the city’s walls. What was the city of Intellectual Property has become the city of Investment Property
Corrective Justice and Copyright Infringement
No full textThis article demonstrates that one crucially important function of copyright infringement cases is corrective justice. However, because scholars and lawmakers often conceive of copyright in solely economic terms, this goal is often overlooked and demonstrable unfairness occurs as a result.
The article uses tort law theory to make three points. Firstly, the economic theory of copyright is incomplete. This theory states that copyright is a tool for providing authors with incentives to create new works. However, this goal does not explain the legal relationship between the author and the infringer. If all we want to do is give authors incentives, then all we need to do is reward creation. Government subsidies and prizes are examples of methods for incentivizing creation without requiring the author to sue the infringer.
Secondly, corrective justice is a function of copyright infringement cases. This explains the author-infringer relationship. Corrective justice maintains equality between people. People are equally entitled to their rights. When someone does not respect the rights of others they cause an inequality. The wrongdoer gains something and the victim loses something. By making the wrongdoer compensate the victim, the law removes the gain and loss and restores the antecedent equality. This is one basic function of copyright infringement cases. Copyright is provided for a mix of reasons (some economic, some based on natural rights). Thereafter, when someone infringes copyright, they cause an inequality to arise: the infringer gains the ability to copy without paying a license fee, while the author loses the work’s market value. Making the infringer compensate the author removes the gains and losses and restores the equality between the parties.
Finally, this important goal it is often overlooked. The article will demonstrate three cases where the law does not adequately restore the equality between author and infringer, and which are accordingly unfair. The examples are: statutory damages for wilful infringement, litigation fees, and mass copyright infringement suits
An Advanced Placement
No full textMFA theses in English Language and Literature are not available for direct download. Users wishing to access an MFA thesis in this collection may request access by clicking the link to the restricted file(s) and completing the request form. If we have contact information for the author, we will contact them and request permission to provide access. If we do not have contact information or the author denies or does not respond to our inquiry, we will not be able to provide access.The following is a collection of poems experimenting with the mutable permanence of memory, time, space, and personhood within my childhood home, a small working farm in Central Illinois. The poems serve as both record and instantiation of what transpired in my gathering of self, observing family and what shatters are essential to my identities. There's play as much as study, as neither can exist without the other in earnest.10000-01-0
The Curious Case of Computer-Generated Works under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
No full textUnder section 9(3) of the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988, works that are ‘computer-generated’ (and which have no human author) will be protected by copyright. Ownership of the copyright vests in the person who has made the necessary ‘arrangements’ for the work’s creation. This article introduces two questions in relation to section 9(3). Firstly, how does the section fit with copyright’s originality requirement? Secondly, what is the justification for the provision? In exploring these questions the article develops a novel criticism of section 9(3): the section is either unnecessary or unjustifiably extends legal protection to a class of works which belong in the public domain. While previous literature has praised section 9(3) and suggested that it ought to be adopted more widely, this article concludes that other jurisdictions ought to think carefully before adopting this provision
Intellectual Property's Faith-Based Empiricism
No full textIn recent decades, researchers have produced numerous studies failing to find a positive correlation between IP rights and improved measures of social utility. Based on these findings, a number of scholars argue that society ought to grant fewer and narrower IP rights in the future. One scholar, Professor Mark Lemley (‘Faith-Based Intellectual Property’ (2016) 62 UCLA L Rev 1328) claims that supporting the status quo with natural rights arguments is irrational and displays a quasi-religious ‘faith’ in IP law. This essay considers the epistemological foundations of Lemley’s ‘faith-based’ critique of natural rights arguments in IP law. Assuming that natural rights arguments are based on faith, are empirical-utilitarian arguments any more rational? This essay claims that empirical-utilitarian arguments also rest on irrational faith. Lawyers who base policy decisions on empirical IP studies are, like the present author, ‘faith-based empiricists’ when it comes to IP and utility
Why the U.K. Adaptation Right Is Superior to the U.S. Derivative Work Right
No full textThe author’s exclusive right to prepare derivative works is one of the most maligned doctrines in modern U.S. copyright. Lying at the root of this dissatisfaction is the Copyright Act’s expansive conception of derivative works. The statute defines this term as “a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgement, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted.” Courts apply the final clause of this definition (i.e. the “in any other form” language) very broadly, thus allowing the author control over an ever-expanding range of new adaptations. Given the controversy caused by the derivative works right, it is time to consider how other nations deal with this issue. This Article suggests that when reforming the derivative works right, the U.S. should adopt a rule-based approach, like the U.K. In 1976, the U.S. adopted a standard-based derivative work right, hoping this would enable the law to flexibly extend over new, unforeseeable derivative works that may arise in the future. In contrast, the U.K. worried that a general adaptation right may lead to excessively broad law. Therefore, the U.K. narrowly tailored their adaptation right and tried to find flexibility to deal with novel adaptations elsewhere in the copyright system. Using economic literature on the comparative efficiency of rules and standards, this Article demonstrates how the U.K.’s approach was ultimately more efficient. Since enacting the Copyright Act 1976, U.S. law has become excessively broad. The lack of limits on the derivative work concept allowed authors to exclude many new welfare-enhancing works from the market. At the same time, the vagueness inherent in the standard-based approach makes application of the law much more complicated, time consuming, and costly. The U.K. avoided these problems by adopting a precise, rule-based approach to derivative works. As a result, the perturbations surrounding the U.S. derivative works right do not exist in the U.K. Part I of this Article explains why the U.K. and U.S. adopted different approaches to the derivative works right. Part II shows how this decision to adopt different approaches eventually led to different case outcomes. Part III compares the two approaches using economic literature on legal rules and standards. Doing so demonstrates how the U.S. standard-based approach is substantively too broad and procedurally too costly. Part IV considers some potential solutions to remedy the inefficiencies in U.S. law. This Article contends that the U.S. should make a statutory amendment to the Copyright Act and adopt a rule-based approach, much like that found in the U.K. Part V concludes
Covert surveillance and the invisibilities of policing
No full textThis article draws upon research from the first ethnographic field study of covert policing conducted in the United Kingdom, and seeks to shed light on how covert officers carry out their surveillance work. In particular, it demonstrates how officers attempt to blend into their surroundings and render their work invisible in order to intrude into the daily lives of those people considered suspect. In so doing, we highlight some hitherto unnoticed aspects - or 'invisibilities' - of policing, and show that the surveillance strategies used by law enforcement are increasingly embedded in the most mundane aspects of social life. In contrast to the processes of mass surveillance that are typically the focus of surveillance scholars, the article serves as a reminder that the surveillance powers of the State are vastly intensified when individual members of the public are regarded as suspects by the police. © The Author(s) 2011
"Tender-Hearted Cousin": Queerness As Strength in 'Richard II'
No full textGregory Doran’s 2013 adaption of Shakespeare’s Richard II, performed by the RSC, was notable for its emphasis of a romantic subplot between King Richard and his cousin, the Duke of Aumerle. Their intimate relationship was again emphasised when Doran revived the production as part of the RSC’s King and Country cycle in 2016, thereby demonstrating that for Doran, Richard’s queerness is a fundamental aspect of the play. This research will investigate how the presentation of Richard’s sexuality, and his relationship with Aumerle in particular, has an impact on the way in which characters and situations within the play are perceived by the audience. This exploration will be underpinned by an analysis of the RSC’s 2013 performance. Use will also be made of commentary and interviews about the production, as well as critical reviews. Comparisons will be made between Doran’s production of Richard II and versions of the play produced by other directors, such as Simon Goodwin, who makes less of Richard’s sexuality, or Rupert Goold, who characterises it as a disadvantage. These contrasts will be made to demonstrate the difference that Richard’s overt Queerness - or lack thereof - has on the audience’s perception of the story. Examining this topic will demonstrate the nuances that the queer relationships in Doran’s production add to Richard II. In particular, Doran’s version of the play uses Richard II’s sexuality as a source of strength, rather than as a catalyst for his downfall, and his intimate relationship with Aumerle humanises an otherwise selfish and narcissistic King
How Much Surveillance is Too Much? Some Thoughts on Surveillance, Democracy, and the Political Value of Privacy
No full textOver the past decade it has become increasingly common to speak of the emergence of a surveillance society. Surveillance is an almost inescapable part of 21st century life. There is a very real danger that individual privacy - as it is currently understood - may soon become a thing of the past. Some would argue privacy is already dead and we have no choice but to accept our newly transparent lives. For many, surveillance has become part of daily life during visit banks, stores, shopping malls, and many public streets and parks. Travel through airports subjects our bodies to physical scans and our passports to electronic scrutiny. Attendees of public gatherings and demonstrations are often overtly captured on police CCTV video cameras. Perhaps the most profound expansion of surveillance has been in the area of dataveillance. Both the state and the private sector routinely require individuals to hand over large amounts of personal information as a matter of law or in exchange for access to services. The private sector owns vast amounts of information about us and processes and shares that information to create consumer profiles capable of accurately predicting individual consumption preferences. The intrusion of surveillance and dataveillance into every aspect of our lives hampers the degree to which individuals are able to construct and control different context-specific social identities. Our ability to function in society rests partly on our ability to keep these social roles separate. surveillance posses a very real threat to teh possibility of living complex, multi-layered social lives. This chapter considers question of how surveillance might affect the proper functioning of the rule of law, and the related question of how much surveillance is too much in a democratic society. The author considers: (1) the role of privacy in the protection of political rights; and (2) how much surveillance is too much
DANCING WITH THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY – MEDICAL PRACTICE BETWEEN ETHICS AND BUSINESS
No full textThe paper deals with the Romanian consumer’s profile, analyzed in terms of household expenditure structure, by main destinations for food,non-food, services and taxes components, and household’s consumption, in terms of size and structure of food consumption. Synthetic images of quantitative parameters were made using national and international statistical data, between 1991 and 2009. We took into account the total expenditure of households, total consumption expenditure, the structure of monetary consumption expenditure, the average consumption of main food products, in structure and dynamics. Diagnostic analyses were performed by multi-annual approach of these indicators, important warning signals in the evolution of the household consumption. The multi-country and multi-annual benchmarking contributes to the highlighting of the national consumer profile, compared to those of the other 30-40 countries. These issues underline the extent of the economic crisis seen by the national households like an influence in shaping the consumer’s mentality.health industries; relationship marketing for healthcare organizations
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