The Supreme Court should grant review of the Federal Circuit's decisions in Oracle v. Google for two compelling sets of reasons. First, the Federal Circuit's decisions conflict with this Court's seminal decision in Baker v. Selden, 101 U.S. 99 (1879), misinterpret Congress's codification of this...

Four decades ago, the Ninth Circuit ruled that expert testimony was inadmissible to determine whether Mayor McCheese and the merry band of McDonaldland characters infringed copyright protection for Wilhelmina W. Witchiepoo and the other imaginative H.R. Pufnstuf costumed characters. Since the...

Notice of preexisting rights plays a critical role in resource planning. This article focuses on the history, role, institutions, costs, and efficacy of notice within the domain of expressive creativity. It distinguishes between two sets of copyright notice challenges: tracing of copyright...

This article calls attention to the dismal state of copyright's public approval rating. Drawing on the format and style of Ira Glass's “This American Life” radio broadcast, the presentation unfolds in three parts: Act I – How did we get here?; Act II – Why should society care about...

For a century, Congress has sought to protect authors and their families by allowing them to grant their copyrights for exploitation and then, decades later, recapture those same rights. After judicial interpretation of the 1909 Act frustrated this intent, Congress spoke unambiguously in 1976:...

This article explores how 3D printing fits within US copyright law. US copyright law provides a well-developed general framework for the protection of creative designs, whether fixed in CAD files or 3D objects. Enforcement of copyright protection in this industry faces some of the same...

In conjunction with Congressional review of copyright law in light of technological and other developments that affect the creation, dissemination, and use of copyrighted works, the U.S. Copyright Office announced on March 17, 2014 the initiation of a study to evaluate the effectiveness of...

This commentary discusses the U.S. Copyright Office's May 5, 2014 hearing on the scope of the Section 106(3) distribution right, including the role of legislative history in interpreting this provision of copyright law. Following hearings before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual...

After a decade of bruising legal battles, the courts and software industry norms largely resolved the costly war over the scope of copyright protection for computer software. By the mid 1990s, freedom to develop interoperable devices, systems, and software triumphed over broad copyright...

This article describes the evolution of copyright protection for computer software. It shows how the courts successfully deployed and adapted copyright doctrines in a manner that protected software against piracy while at the same time allowing for competition and innovation