Copyright Law: By Example

Jody Blanke, ProfessorComputer Information

Systems and LawMercer University, Atlanta

Ilani Ilani, Rachael and Melissa chip in to buy a

copy of Ian Rankin’s latest novel, Mortal Causes. They go to a copy center, and make two photocopies of the book. They draw straws to see who gets to keep the book and who gets stuck with the photocopies. The scheme works so well that they decide to do the same thing with their Educational Psychology textbook.

Copyright Law Article I, Section 8 of the

Constitution To promote the progress of science

and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries

Copyright Act of 1790 Applied to books, maps and charts Term: 14 years (renewable for 14

years)

Copyright Act of 1976 Applies to literary works, musical

works, dramatic works, pantomimes and choreographic works, pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works, motion pictures and other audiovisual works, sound recordings, and architectural works

Term: life of the author plus 50 years

Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998

Extended the term of copyright protection to life of the author plus 70 years

Added 20 years of protection to existing works still protected by copyright

Eldred v. Ashcroft (2003)

Federal Copyright Interest Upon fixation in a tangible medium No requirement to file Owner has right to reproduce, sell,

rent, lease, lend, perform, display, prepare derivative work

Subject to some limitations or exceptions “Fair use”

Fair Use Section 107 of the Copyright Act

“[T]he fair use of a copyrighted work … for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—”

Fair Use Factors The purpose of the use, e.g.,

nonprofit educational reasons The nature of the copyrighted work The amount and substantiality of the

portion used in relation to the whole The effect of the use upon the

potential market for or value of the work

Zack Zack buys a copy of the game

WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos for his computer. He burns a copy of the CD containing the game.

Backup Copy Copyright law permits one backup

copy to be made for archival purposes (Section 117 of the Copyright Act)

Can you give your friend the “backup copy”?

License Agreement When you “buy” a piece of

software, you actually purchase a license for its use

Terms can vary greatly from one license to another

Some permit installation on more than one machine

Melanie Melanie's father videotapes the

movie The Lion King from a channel on public airwaves. Also, he borrows a friend's Beauty and the Beast videotape, and makes a copy of it on his dual cassette video recorder.

Sony Betamax Case (1984) In 1982 several movie and

television studios sued Sony to prevent its manufacture and sale of the Betamax video tape recorder

Mr. Rogers testified for the defense Supreme Court held that “time-

shifting” was a legitimate, noninfringing fair use

Charlene Charlene makes an audiocassette

recording of a radio broadcast of a Norah Jones album.

Tough One Harbinger of things to come Transition from an analog to a

digital world

Bruce Bruce buys a copy of the The Paul

Simon Collection CD, and makes an audiocassette copy for his car and two CD copies, one for his upstairs CD player and one for his kitchen CD player.

Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 Music industry successfully lobbied

against DATs perfect copies every time

Act provides quid pro quo industry gets Serial Copy Management

System and blank tape royalty scheme consumers get right to make analog or

digital recordings for their private non-commercial use (immune from infringement)

Jaime Jaime downloads 23 Elliot Smith

songs on her computer in MP3 format. She burns them onto a CD to listen to on her portable CD player and in her car.

Digital Technology Music industry rocked by:

greater disk capacity compression software (MP3 files) Internet

RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia (1999) The RIAA alleged that the Rio MP3

violated the AHRA of 1992 The court found that the Rio was not

a “digital audio recording device” The court held that the Rio’s “space-

shifting” was entirely consistent with the AHRA’s main purpose – the facilitation of personal use

A&M Records v. Napster (2001)

Enjoined Napster from facilitating the distribution of copyrighted works

Rejected fair use defense not “time-shifting” or “space-shifting”

New peer-to-peer networks arise and take its place, e.g., Kazaa, Limewire

Adam Adam buys a copy of the Borat

DVD. He makes an extra copy of it, keeps the copy for himself, and mails the original home for his father.

Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 Criminal prohibition against

circumventing any technological measure that controls access to a copyrighted work DVDs contain such measure some CDs now contain anti-copying

code Lessig – law regulates code; code

regulates law

Stacie For Stacie's twelfth grade project

on "Multimedia Today," she collects a variety of text, art, photos, audio and video from CDs, DVDs and the Web, and compiles them onto a CD. She gets an A+ on the project.

Stacie’s Future College? Prison?