Copyright protection of the restoration and reconstruction of works, especially of public domain works, is a controversial matter. One of the pillars of copyright protection, the requirement that the work is original, that is, it originates from the author and does not derive entirely from a...

The Hungarian National Report on the Balance of Copyright was prepared for the XVIIIth International Congress of Comparative Law, held in July 2010 in Washington D.C. (USA). The report introduces the features of the Hungarian statute law, case law and copyright theory in respect of the issue of...

As scientists are motivated by readership rather than by royalties, one might doubt that academic copyright is required for protecting the authors' property rights and for stimulating research. Consequently, the possibility of moving to an open access regime by abolishing academic copyright is...

This paper reveals how theory of copyright has developed from history. From The Statute of Anne in 1710 to Wheaton v. Peters in 1834 where different aspects of copyright were put forward. This paper also deals with creation of American copyright by a utilitarian, rather than a natural-law,...

In June and October 2009, the French parliament passed controversial copyright laws aimed at deterring internet piracy. The laws establish a new anti-piracy scheme known, in France, as the graduated response and, in the US and other English-speaking countries, as “three strikes and you’re...

This short paper reflects on the emergence of codes of best practices in fair use, highlighting both the relationship between the best practices approach and an institutional perspective on copyright and the relationship between the best practices approach and social processes of innovation and...

Written by a leading expert in copyright valuation, the paper reviews critical considerations for estimating damages in litigation regarding musical compositions and sound recordings. These valuations can also be related to matters involving breach of contract, tortuous interference, personal...

This contribution to a symposium on the tenth anniversary of the WIPO Copyright Treaty (now published with a 2010 postscript) suggests that the WIPO Copyright Treaty represented a watershed moment in international copyright law for two reasons. First, it was in the 1996 Diplomatic Conference...

The copyright system has long been understood to play a critical role when it comes to the development and distribution of creative work. Copyright serves a second fundamental purpose, however: it encourages the development and distribution of related technologies like hardware that might be...

Intellectual property rights are often justified by utilitarian theory. However, recent scholarship suggests that creativity thrives in some industries in the absence of intellectual property protection. These industries might be called IP's negative spaces. One such industry that has received...