"Madame Bovary"'s Obscenity Trial: Was It Really About IP Rights?

Erin Blakemore writes about the obscenity trial of Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary for JSTOR Daily., discussing Christine Haynes' article The Politics of Publishing During the Second Empire: The Trial of "Madame Bovary" Revisited which argues that the author and fellow artists were interested in upholding their intellectual property rights more than their right to freedom of expression. More here. 

Bruncevic @doctorbruncevic on Law, Art, and the Commons

Merima Bruncevic, Department of Law, University of Gothenburg, is publishing Law, Art and the Commons (Routledge, 2016). Here is a description of the book's contents from the publisher's website.

The concept of the cultural commons has become increasingly important for legal studies. Within this field, however, it is a contested concept: at once presented as a sphere for creativity, democratic access and freedom of speech, and as one that denies property rights and misappropriates the public domain. In this book, Merima Bruncevic takes up the cultural commons not merely as an abstract notion, but in its connection to physical spaces such as museums and libraries. A legal cultural commons can, she argues, be envisioned as a lawscape that can quite literally be entered and engaged with. Focusing largely on artin the context of the copyright regime, but also addressing a number of cultural heritage issues, the book draws on the work of Deleuze and Guattari in order to examine the realm of the commons as a potential space for overcoming the dichotomy between the owner and the consumer of culture. Challenging this dichotomy, it is the productive and creative potential of law itself that is elicited through the book’s approach to the commons as the empirical basis for a new legal framework, which is able to accommodate a multitude of interests and values.

Stefan Larsson's New Book: Conceptions in the Code: How Metaphors Explain Legal Challenges In Digital Times @lastsys

Via @maksdelmar

Stefan Larsson, Associate Professor in Technology and Social Change, Lund University Internet Institute (LUii), Sweden, is publishing Conceptions in the Code: How Metaphors Explain Legal Challenges in Digital Times (Oxford, 2017) (Oxford Studies in Language and Law). Here is a description of the book's contents from the publisher's website.

Stefan Larsson's Conceptions in the Code makes a significant contribution to sociolegal analysis, representing a valuable contribution to conceptual metaphor theory. By utilising the case of copyright in a digital context it explains the role that metaphor plays when the law is dealing with technological change, displaying both conceptual path-dependence as well as what is called non-legislative developments in the law. The overall analysis draws from conceptual studies of "property" in intellectual property. By using Karl Renner's account of property, Larsson demonstrates how the property regime of copyright is the projection of an older regime of control onto a new set of digital social relations. Further, through an analysis of the concept of "copy" in copyright as well as the metaphorical battle of defining the BitTorrent site "The Pirate Bay" in the Swedish court case with its founders, Larsson shows the historical and embodied dependence of digital phenomena in law, and thereby how normative aspects of the source concept also stains the target domain. The book also draws from empirical studies on file sharing and historical expressions of the conceptualisation of law, revealing both the cultural bias of both file sharing and law. Also law is thereby shown to be largely depending on metaphors and embodiment to be reified and understood. The contribution is relevant for the conceptual and regulatory struggles of a multitude of contemporary socio-digital phenomena in addition to copyright and file sharing, including big data and the oft-praised "openness" of digital innovation.

 

Call For Papers: Conference on Images, Copyright, and the Public Domain in the Long Nineteenth Century, March 29-30, 2018

Via IP and IT Conferences Blog posted by Saurabh Vishnubhakat

 

 

Call for Papers: Images, Copyright, and the Public Domain in the Long Nineteenth Century

Call for Papers: Images, Copyright, and the Public Domain in the Long Nineteenth Century

Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library
Abstracts: February 1, 2017
Notifications: June 1, 2017
Conference: March 29-30, 2018

In partnership with LARCA (Laboratoire de recherches sur les cultures anglophones), Université Paris Diderot

Background

A combination of technological, cultural, and economic factors during the long nineteenth century made images more readily available in a wider range of media than ever before. These transformations raised new questions about the ownership and use of images.

Working in the new field of lithography, artists produced portraits, topographical landscapes, caricatures, everyday scenes, and representations of events done “on the spot,” which publishers distributed quickly and relatively cheaply. Thanks to changes in printing techniques and the commercial strategies of publishers, engraved images became more common in books, magazines, and newspapers. The development of photography led to the production and circulation of images in the form of daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, cartes-de-visite, and stereographs. The quest to reproduce photographic images in print inspired numerous photomechanical processes that raised questions about the status of the image and its creator. Meanwhile, increasingly sophisticated printed reproductions of visual works raised new questions about what constituted “authorship” under copyright law; about how to balance the interests of artists, distributors, and collectors; and about how to protect the privacy of individuals whose images were being reproduced and displayed in public. As images and the techniques used to produce them spread across national borders, the question of colonial and international copyright became increasingly important.

Current Project

This project aims to bring together scholars from a range of disciplines and fields (printing history, art history, law, literature, visual culture, book history, etc.) to explore the cultural and legal consequences of the proliferation of images in the long nineteenth century. Our geographic focus will be on Great Britain and the United States in connection with the wider world, not only their colonies and territories, but also their commercial and artistic links with other countries. Contributions that consider the transnational circulation of images, or provide a comparative perspective on copyright, are most welcome, as are case studies that reveal the local factors that shaped attitudes and practices related to the circulation of images. In referring to the “long 19th century,” we want to encourage specialists of earlier and later periods to help us elucidate the broader history of imaging and printing techniques and the legal and cultural norms that surrounded them.

Event Details

As the first stage in the project, we invite interested scholars to propose papers for a conference to be held at Winterthur Museum, Delaware, March 29-30, 2018. Following the conference, authors will be invited to revise papers for possible publication in a special issue of a journal on this topic. In the spring of 2019, a follow-up workshop for contributors will be held at Université Paris Diderot, with the goal of finalizing the joint publication and discussing further research opportunities in this field.

The following list is in no way exhaustive, but reveals some potential lines of inquiry:

• To what extent did changes in imaging and printing techniques affect the status of images as understood by those who made them and those who viewed them?
• What norms did artists, architects, photographers, engravers and others establish to govern the circulation and reproduction of their works?
• How were copyright and/or patent law understood by the people who produced, distributed, and viewed images of various kinds?
• Was there a sense of a “public domain” in the realm of visual culture, and if so how was this articulated?
• How did attitudes toward the authorship and attribution of images evolve during this period?
• What were the perceived boundaries between legitimate and illegitimate copying, and how did these vary across media?
• In cases where the law was silent or ambiguous, what cultural practices and commercial strategies were developed, either to promote the ownership of images or to contest it?

Submission Instructions

• Please send an abstract (one page) of your proposed contribution and a short CV (two pages) to imagecopy19@gmail.com by February 1, 2017.
• We will notify accepted participants by June 1, 2017.
• Questions may be addressed to imagecopy19@gmail.com.

Co-conveners

• Stephanie Delamaire, Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library
• Will Slauter, LARCA, Univ. Paris Diderot

A New Book on Authors, Copyright, and Celebrity

Mark Rose, University of California, Santa Barbara, has published Authors in Court: Scenes From the Theater of Copyright (Harvard University Press, 2016). Here is a description of the contents from the publisher's website. 

Through a series of vivid case studies, Authors in Court charts the 300-year-long dance between authorship and copyright that has shaped each institution’s response to changing social norms of identity, privacy, and celebrity. Authors’ self-presentations in court are often inflected by prevailing concepts of propriety and respectability. And judges, for their part, have not been immune to the reputation and standing of the authors who have appeared before them in legal dramas.

Some authors strut their roles on the public stage. For example, Napoleon Sarony—the nineteenth-century photographer whose case established that photographs might be protected as works of art—was fond of marching along Broadway dressed in a red fez and high-top campaign boots, proclaiming his special status as a celebrity. Others, such as the reclusive J. D. Salinger, enacted their dramas precisely by shrinking from attention. Mark Rose’s case studies include the flamboyant early modern writer Daniel Defoe; the self-consciously genteel poet Alexander Pope; the nineteenth-century abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe; the once-celebrated early twentieth-century dramatist Anne Nichols, author of Abie’s Irish Rose; and the provocative contemporary artist Jeff Koons. These examples suggest not only how social forms such as gender and gentility have influenced the self-presentation of authors in public and in court but also how the personal styles and histories of authors have influenced the development of legal doctrine.

Via @LawandLit and Legal History Blog.

Bruncevic @doctorbruncevic Publishing Book With Routledge on Law, Art, and the Commons

Forthcoming from Routledge:

Merima Bruncevic, Department of Law, University of Gothenburg, is publishing Law, Art and the Commons (November 30, 2016). Here is a description of the contents from the publisher's website.

The concept of the cultural commons has become increasingly important for legal studies. Within this field, however, it is a contested concept: at once presented as a sphere for creativity, democratic access and freedom of speech, and as one that denies property rights and misappropriates the public domain. In this book, Merima Bruncevic takes up the cultural commons not merely as an abstract notion, but in its connection to physical spaces such as museums and libraries. A legal cultural commons can, she argues, be envisioned as a lawscape that can quite literally be entered and engaged with. Focusing largely on artin the context of the copyright regime, but also addressing a number of cultural heritage issues, the book draws on the work of Deleuze and Guattari in order to examine the realm of the commons as a potential space for overcoming the dichotomy between the owner and the consumer of culture. Challenging this dichotomy, it is the productive and creative potential of law itself that is elicited through the book’s approach to the commons as the empirical basis for a new legal framework, which is able to accommodate a multitude of interests and values.

Liebowitz on the Payment of British Authors in 19th Century America

Stan J. Liebowitz, University of Texas, Dallas, School of Management, Department of Finance & Managerial Economics, has published Paradise Lost or Fantasy Island? The Payment of British Authors in 19th Century America. Here is the abstract.

The payments to British authors by American publishers during the mid-19th century, when the works of British authors lacked American copyright protection, has been presented as evidence that copyright might have little benefit to authors. This paper reexamines the evidence that has been used to support this claim and then presents previously unexamined information on payments to British authors by leading American publishers of the period. The main finding is that payments to British authors were minimal or non-existent prior to the establishment of a no-compete agreement among leading American publishers. Even after implementation of this agreement, many British authors were not paid, and those who were paid received considerably less than they would have received under copyright. Because antitrust disallows such agreements, this 19th natural experiment indicates that the removal of copyright in modern economies would likely eviscerate payments to authors.

The full article is not available for download.

Dougherty on the Misapplication of "Mastermind": A Mutant Species of Work for Hire and the Mystery of Disappearing Copyrights

F. Jay Dougherty, Loyola Law School (Los Angeles), is publishing The Misapplication of 'Mastermind': A Mutant Species of Work for Hire and the Mystery of Disappearing Copyrights in volume 39 of the Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts (2016). Here is the abstract.

Recent decisions in both the Ninth (Garcia v. Google) and Second (Casa Duse 16) Circuit have applied concepts of "mastermind" authorship or "dominant author" to claims of copyright in individual contributions of actors and directors to a motion picture. This article, which is a transcript of a presentation at Columbia Law School, describes the roots of the "mastermind" concept in copyright and argues for its mis-application in this context.

The full text of the article is not available from SSRN.

Cross-posted to the Media Law Prof Blog.

Call for Papers: LSU Conference on Law, Authorship, and Appropriation, October 28-29, 2016

The organizers of the LSU Conference on Law, Authorship, and Appropriation are still accepting submissions for the conference, which will take place October 28-29, 2016. A few slots for presenters remain. Please submit your proposal by July 6th if possible to allow the organizers to consider your proposal carefully.

Call for Papers

By Any Other’s Name: A Conference on Law, Authorship, and Appropriation

Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA

October 28-29, 2016

On October 28-29, 2016, the LSU College of Music and Dramatic Arts, LSU School of Theatre, the LSU Law Center, LSU's ORED (Office of Research and Economic Development) and the Law and Humanities Institute will co-sponsor a conference on law, authorship, and appropriation on the LSU A and M campus in Baton Rouge, LA. This conference will bring together scholars, performers, and students to discuss law and authorship in the face of challenges issued by artists who engage in appropriation—the practice of taking the works of others to rethink or recreate new works.

Some artists who engage in appropriation may describe their activities as parody, sampling, or remixing. Some artists whose work is appropriated may describe the result as misappropriation. Writers might describe the use or reuse of words variously as hommage or plagiarism. Lawyers weigh in both sides of the issue, interpreting such reuse as fair use or infringement, depending on the circumstances.

Digital technology creates a host of new considerations, from the opportunity for a creator to license rights up-front (or not at all) to opportunities for users to create content cooperatively, either on the Web or in face-to-face settings. 

What do such changes, in law and in aesthetics and art, mean for our understandings of authorship and the relationship between creator and audience? Do words like “author” and “creator” even continue to have meaning?

General areas for possible paper topics include, but are not limited to:

Appropriation, theft, or something else

Cultural appropriation

Defenses to copyright infringement

Digital sampling and the law

Fair use and specific forms of artistic expression (parody, fan fiction, other)

History and concept of authorship

Plagiarism and originality in creation

Wearable technology and IP

We encourage proposals that engage all geographic areas and historical periods.

Together scholars and performers in the areas of free speech, copyright, and the arts to examine conflicts that arise between traditional creators of content and artists who use and/or re-use existing content to remake, remix and develop new works. In addition, the event will begin to examine some ways that the academy and the professions can educate young artists, attorneys, and students to understand these issues.  

The conference will provide opportunities for discussion, student engagement, and active learning with leading scholars and professionals in the industry in the areas of freedom of expression, intellectual property law, and the creative and performing arts. We also envision opportunities for performances that demonstrate some of the ways artists work proactively and thoughtfully in these areas.

To that end participants should be willing to engage with attendees in break-out and discussion sessions.

Performers are encouraged to submit proposals. If your proposal includes a performance, please indicate what kind in the abstract.

Paper Submission Information

Please send abstracts of no more than 500 words in PDF or Word format to Christine Corcos at christine.corcos@law.lsu.edu or Kristin Sosnowsky at ksosno1@lsu.edu by July 6, 2016. We will make decisions by July 13, 2016.

Some funding may be available for successful applicants. Panelists will have the option to offer completed papers for inclusion in a peer-reviewed conference volume.

Jonathan Bailey @plagiarismtoday on Plagiarism and Popular Culture

Jonathan Bailey maintains and writes for the site Plagiarism Today. Here are some of his posts concerning Plagiarism and Pop Culture. While copyright infringement and plagiarism aren't the same thing, they implicate some of the same issues.

Plagiarism is an ethical issue. It involves using someone else's work and claiming it as your own. You can avoid a plagiarism accusation by acknowledging another's work by giving an appropriate citation. However, that doesn't mean you've avoided a copyright infringement problem.

Copyright infringement is a legal issue If you cannot claim the protection of fair use or some other defense, simply properly acknowledging the source doesn't mean you haven't also infringed someone's copyright. You might still need to get a license to use that person's material, for example (or some other kind of permission; copyright might not be the only IP involved).

Mr. Bailey's posts are a lot of fun to read, and give us things to chew on.

Frydrychowski @ThisInHaste on the Intellectual and Cultural Background of Stage Copyright

D. E. Frydrychowski, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, has published A Very Brief Note on the 'Machine in the Ghost' of American Early Film and Theatre Copyright Law. Here is the abstract.

By considering the litigation surrounding Augustin Daly's Under the Gaslight and other contemporaneous cases, the paper attempts to sketch out an intellectual and cultural context for the early efforts at stage copyright.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Comics and Modernism in the Journal of Modern Literature

In volume 39 of the Journal of Modern Literature, a special section on Comics and Modernism.

Via Project Muse.

Introduction: Comics and Modernism

pp. 111-114

Jackson Ayres

HTML Download PDF

“But — what can anyone do about it?”: Modernism, Superheroes, and the Unfinished Business of the Common Good

pp. 115-125

Andrew Hoberek

HTML Download PDF

Lynd Ward’s Modernist “Novels in Woodcuts”: Graphic Narratives Lost Between Art History and Literature

pp. 126-143

David M. Ball

HTML Download PDF

The Integrity of the Work: Alan Moore, Modernism, and the Corporate Author

pp. 144-166

Jackson Ayres

HTML Download PDF

The Superhero Historicized, Theorized, and Read

pp. 167-170

Zachary King

HTML Download PDF

Pirating Modernism: Without Copyrights by Robert Spoo

pp. 171-179

Igor Dombrovsky

HTML Download PDF

Tip of the beret to Simon Stern@ArsScripta.

Spoo on Piracy, Publishing, and Copyright

Now in paperback:

Robert Spoo: Without Copyrights: Piracy, Publishing, and the Public Domain (Oxford University Press, 2016). 

• Provides a thorough historical survey of the impact of U.S. copyright law on transatlantic modernist authors
• Documents the growth and development across time of the American public domain, as shaped by the historically protectionist and formalistic U.S. copyright law
• Gives fresh insights drawn from unpublished materials-letters by Joyce, John Quinn, Ezra Pound, Sylvia Beach, John M. Price, and others-and makes extensive use of hitherto unknown legal archives

Netanel's Introduction to "From Maimonides to Microsoft: The Jewish Law of Copyright Since the Birth of Print"

Neil Weinstock Netanel, UCLA School of Law, has published Introduction to: From Maimonides to Microsoft: The Jewish Law of Copyright Since the Birth of Print, in From Maimonides to Microsoft: The Jewish Law of Copyright Since the Birth of Print (Oxford University Press, 2016). Here is the abstract.

In this book, Neil Netanel traces the historical development of Jewish copyright law. In so doing, he compares rabbinic reprinting bans with secular and papal book privileges and relays the stories of dramatic disputes among publishers of books of Jewish learning and liturgy, beginning with the early sixteenth century and continuing until today. He describes each dispute in its historical context and examines the rabbinic rulings that sought to resolve it. Remarkably, the rabbinic reprinting bans and copyright rulings address some of the same issues that animate copyright jurisprudence today: Is copyright a property right or just a right to receive fair compensation? How long should copyrights last? What purposes does copyright serve? While Jewish copyright law has borrowed from its secular counterpart at key junctures, it fashions strikingly different answers to those key questions.

Download the Introduction from SSRN at the link.

A New Book on Authorship and Copyright From Mark Rose

Mark Rose, Professor of English, University of California, Santa Barbara, is publishing Authors in Court: Scenes from the Theater of Copyright (Harvard University Press, 2016). Here is a description of the contents from the publisher's website.

Through a series of vivid case studies, Authors in Court charts the 300-year-long dance between authorship and copyright that has shaped each institution’s response to changing social norms of identity, privacy, and celebrity. Authors’ self-presentations in court are often inflected by prevailing concepts of propriety and respectability. And judges, for their part, have not been immune to the reputation and standing of the authors who have appeared before them in legal dramas. Some authors strut their roles on the public stage. For example, Napoleon Sarony—the nineteenth-century photographer whose case established that photographs might be protected as works of art—was fond of marching along Broadway dressed in a red fez and high-top campaign boots, proclaiming his special status as a celebrity. Others, such as the reclusive J. D. Salinger, enacted their dramas precisely by shrinking from attention. Mark Rose’s case studies include the flamboyant early modern writer Daniel Defoe; the self-consciously genteel poet Alexander Pope; the nineteenth-century abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe; the once-celebrated early twentieth-century dramatist Anne Nichols, author of Abie’s Irish Rose; and the provocative contemporary artist Jeff Koons. These examples suggest not only how social forms such as gender and gentility have influenced the self-presentation of authors in public and in court but also how the personal styles and histories of authors have influenced the development of legal doctrine.

Cronin on 3D Printing, Public Domain Cultural Artifacts, and Copyright

Charles Patrick Desmond Cronin, USC School of Law, has published Possession is 99% of the Law: 3D Printing, Public Domain Cultural Artifacts & Copyright. Here is the abstract.

Since time immemorial there has been an uneasy rapport between those who own tangible cultural artifacts, and those who wish to examine them, and record, analyze, and reproduce the information they embody. Owners of physical objects - museums, libraries, individuals, etc. - are caught between a desire to enhance the prestige and renown of these artifacts through public display, and a fear that non-owners might capitalize without their authorization, or any apparent benefit to them, upon their access to these works. Tangible cultural artifacts are akin to trade secrets in that once they are revealed it is difficult to control, by law or other means, further dissemination of their information. Just as one can legally reverse engineer and reproduce the secret formula of a fragrance or an unpatented pharmaceutical, one may legitimately copy and reproduce for virtually any purpose public domain old master paintings, classical sculptures, etc., that are owned by another. Owners of public domain artifacts attempt to overcome their inability to rely upon copyright to capitalize financially on reproductions through physical, technological and legal measures. As digital capture and reproduction technologies have advanced, and become so prevalent, some owners have resorted to restrictive physical and technological measures like smartphone prohibitions and watermarks. Increasingly, however, owners rely on contracts, and specifically licensing agreements, to suppress unauthorized replication of public domain works that they have displayed publically. Until recently, owners have been concerned mainly about unauthorized - and more pointedly, uncompensated - copying and reproduction of essentially two-dimensional works: prints, drawings, paintings, photographs, etc. Since the advent of photography one can legally and inexpensively create copies of public domain works that convey most of the information contained in the originals. Using digital technologies - laser scanning and additive printing and subtractive manufacture - today one can create copies that most observers would find indistinguishable from the originals. 3D scanning and printing technologies also make it possible to replicate sculptural works and myriad other three-dimensional artifacts. Hitherto, these works had been relatively immune to unauthorized reproduction. A reproduction of a statue, for instance, involved a laborious process demanding direct physical contact with the original work. A 3D scan of the same statue might be obtained in less than an hour, and could be used to produce an infinite number of replicas of it. It is even possible to create 3D scans using still photographs of a work taken from various angles - an encouraging possibility, for example, to those endeavoring to restore the Buddhas of Bamiyan that the Taliban destroyed. The potential loss of control over the replication of public domain artifacts posed by 3D replication has disconcerted the owners of these objects, and led to arguably overreaching efforts to suppress the unauthorized use of this technology in connection with these objects. Stanford University, for instance, has permitted a former faculty member to arrogate sole control over access to the 3D data of a University-sponsored project to scan Michelangelo’s David. Access the data is given only to those whose credentials and objectives this former faculty member condones. Prohibitions on “tasteless” and commercial uses by those given access purportedly stem from an agreement struck between the former faculty member and Italian authorities. The Getty recently sponsored Power & Pathos, an exhibition of Hellenic Era bronzes that included The Getty’s Victorious Athlete. The Getty permits visitors to photograph Victorious Athlete and other public domain works that it exhibits in its museums. While this work was included in Power & Pathos, however, The Getty forbade visitors from photographing the work. This prohibition accommodated the demand of European museums that had loaned works included in the exhibition, to suppress activity that they feared might dilute the profits generated by their own reproductions and images of these physical objects. 3D technologies hold remarkable potential for the dissemination of increasingly accurate and enhanced information about tangible cultural artifacts. This article argues that those who apply these technologies to these works should not be inhibited by contractual limitations that establish copying limitations beyond those provided under US copyright law. Three-dimensional cultural artifacts in the public domain, which attract the interest and investment of those working with 3D print technologies, tend to be objects best identified as the cultural legacy of humanity - not that of a particular geographical or political entity. By facilitating the widespread and inexpensive reproduction and distribution of such public domain cultural artifacts, 3D printing technologies, therefore not only promote more democratic access to geographically disperse cultural works, but also advance the dissolution of divisive cultural, political, and geographic boundaries.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Frye on Copyright and Cultural Production

Brian L. Frye, University of Kentucky College of Law, has published Copyright & Cultural Production. Here is the abstract.

The purpose of copyright is to encourage the production of works of authorship. Indeed, the Intellectual Property Clause of the United States Constitution explicitly grants Congress the power, "To promote the progress of science … , by securing for limited times to authors … the exclusive right to their … writings." In the 18th century, "science" meant "knowledge or learning," so the Constitution authorized Congress to create copyright in order to promote knowledge and learning, as embodied in works of authorship. But what does that tell us about the justification for copyright protection, and how we should evaluate its scope and duration? Or rather, how do we ensure that copyright maximizes cultural production?

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Bond and Greenleaf on Copyright Duration in Australian Law, 1869 to 2014

Catherine Bond, University of New South Wales, and Graham Greenleaf, University of New South Wales, Faculty of Law, have published Copyright Duration in Australia: 1869 to 2014 at 25 Australian Intellectual Property Journal 155 (2015). Here is the abstract.

One of the most significant features of any copyright statute is the duration of the rights granted to works and subject matter other than works pursuant to that law. The most "appropriate" length of copyright also continues to be a recurring theme in legislative, policy and academic debates. However, despite both the significance of and interest in the term of copyright, there has been little empirical evidence presented on how long, in light of both statutory term and life expectancies, copyright will likely protect a work. This article provides a historical account of both the duration of copyright and its various extensions, from the introduction of the first colonial copyright statute through to today. It reveals that, while multiple legislative extensions have lengthened the term of protection, continual increases in life expectancies have also added to the duration of copyright, to the point where, today, copyright will likely protect a work for well over 100 years. The paper concludes that it is worth questioning whether IP terms are out of alignment when one form of creation – patents – only warrants a 20 year period of protection whereas another – copyright – garners 120 years. The haphazard legislature approach to copyright terms identified in this article needs to cease, and a more considered approach taken. It feels akin to science fiction that, today, copyright in a work created by a 35 year old today will generally not expire until well after the deaths of a generation that is yet to be born, and extend for more than a century. Furthermore, given the current creations found to be "literary works", this would apply to, for example, a computer program, the practical utility of which will cease over a century before its copyright expires, and where its literary or artistic appeal never existed.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Call for Papers, Copyright and the Circulation of Knowledge

From the website of the Universite Sorbonne Nouvelle

Copyright and the Circulation of Knowledge

du 7 octobre 2016 au 8 octobre 2016
 

C  A  L  L     F  O  R     P  A  P  E  R  S

International Conference
7-8 October 2016
Salle Claude Simon, Maison de la Recherche, Sorbonne Nouvelle


Copyright and the Circulation of Knowledge:

Industry Practices and Public Interests

in Great Britain from the 18th Century to the Present

New combinations of technology, culture, and business practice are transforming relationships among authors, publishers, and audiences in many fields of knowledge, including journalism, science research, and academia. Self-publishing, open-access, open source, creative commons, crowd sourcing and copy left: these are a few of the key words associated with recent changes in how knowledge is produced and circulated. While being celebrated for their potential to democratize knowledge, many of these changes have been accompanied by heated debates on such questions as the appropriate role of experts and ‘gatekeepers’; how to ensure that such projects are both trustworthy and economically viable; and how best to balance the interests of authors, publishers, and the general public. Copyright is often at the centre of these discussions.

Though the technologies involved have changed dramatically since the eighteenth century, similar questions were debated in the decades following the first British copyright statute (1710). Indeed, today’s discussions of piracy and copyright sometimes echo the eighteenth-century ‘battle of the booksellers' that pitted advocates of a limited-term copyright (and the creation of a public domain) against proponents of authors’ natural (and perpetual) rights over their works. Then as now, many felt that the law was not always in step with cultural norms or trade practices. While some denounced all unauthorized republications as piracies, others experimented with new ways of disseminating knowledge through translations, abridgements, compilations (including the first magazines), and cheap reprints. During the nineteenth century, technological and cultural changes and the increasingly international market for books led to more debates over the legitimacy and public utility of various forms of reprinting, as well as new strategies for combatting piracy.

This conference seeks to bring together specialists of Great Britain from the eighteenth century to the present to explore the complex relationship between copyright and the circulation of knowledge. We welcome case studies that focus on a particular time period as well as papers that show how attitudes and practices have changed over time. Papers that bring past and present concerns into dialogue are especially welcome. Potential topics may include:

¤ the economics of publishing in a given period or sector, and its effects on the circulation of knowledge;

¤ the political, cultural, or philosophical underpinnings of public access to knowledge;

¤ the strategies developed by authors or publishers to protect their intellectual property;

¤ the perceived boundaries between legitimate and piratical publications;

¤ the consequences of specific laws or institutional arrangements for the circulation of knowledge in different domains;

¤ the use of historical examples in arguments about copyright and the public domain;

¤ the different forms of publication developed to republish or recirculate existing works, whether authorized or not.

Interested scholars should send an abstract of their proposed paper (200 words) and a short biography-bibliography (100 words)
by 15 January 2016. Answers will be given by 15 March 2016.
Proposals should be sent to copyright-conference@univ-paris3.fr

Organizers:           
¤ Emmanuelle Avril - professeur des universités - Université Sorbonne Nouvelle (CREW/CREC EA 4399)

¤ Bénédicte Miyamoto - mcf - Université Sorbonne Nouvelle (CREW/CREC EA 4399)

¤ Sarah Pickard - mcf - Université Sorbonne Nouvelle (CREW/CREC EA 4399)

¤ Will Slauter - mcf - Université Paris Diderot (LARCA UMR 8225)

¤ Louisiane Ferlier - digitization project manager - the Royal Society
 

Link to the call for papers here.

 Tip of the beret to Kate Sutherland, twitter handle @lawandlit

Moses and Gollan on the Importance of History in Understanding the Impact of New Technologies on Law

Lyria Bennett Moses and Nicola Jane Gollan, both of the University of New South Wales, have published The Illusion of Newness: The Importance of History in Understanding the Law-Technology Interface as UNSW Law Research Paper No. 2015-71. Here is the abstract.

Despite law being a field known for its backward-looking focus on precedent, legal scholarship addressing issues associated with technology too often only looks forward. It is where legal scholarship focuses closely on a particular technology that the risk of ignoring history and the broader context is greatest. The problem, where it arises, is caused by undue focus on the newness of new technologies, and is not unique to law. There is a problematic tendency to exaggerate the newness of issues arising from technological developments. While some legal issues are truly new in that they arise for the first time as a result of a new technological activity or entity, others are simply new manifestations of issues that have arisen previously in other contexts. Even where particular issues are new in this sense, they are not necessarily limited to the particular technological context in which they first arise. Undue focus on socio-technical circumstances narrows the terms of debate. It is argued that the analysis of legal dilemmas associated with particular technologies requires a broad historical perspective that looks beyond the particular circumstances in which they arise. The paper explores three cases: social media, intellectual property, and reproductive technologies. Each case highlights the need for greater scepticism about which issues are truly new, and demonstrate some of the dangers of “over-hyping” the impact of new technologies on law.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.