Copyright laws are important regulators of cultural expression, because they grant extensive rights to control the reproduction, adaptation and communication of ‘literary’ and ‘artistic’ works. The twin concepts of authorship and original work are central to copyright laws the world...

What can and can't be copied is a matter of law, but also of aesthetics, culture, and economics. The act of copying, and the creation and transaction of rights relating to it, evokes fundamental notions of communication and censorship, of authorship and ownership – of privilege and...

Television formats have become a major export industry for Britain and the United States (who together account for nearly two thirds of all format hours broadcast annually worldwide). Yet, there is no such thing as a television format right under copyright law. Any producer is free to develop...

Television formats have become a major export industry for Britain and the United States (who together account for nearly two thirds of all format hours broadcast annually worldwide). Yet, there is no such thing as a television format right under copyright law. Any producer is free to develop...

Reviews the database directive 96/9/EC, including the EU and national case law and its relationship with contract, unfair competition law, trade secrets, TPMs and their legal protection (ACPs), the directive on the re-use of public sector information and machine-generated data (inc. the EC Data...

This study of author’s reversion rights begins with the Statute of Anne and the debates that led up to the adoption of section 11, which vested in the author a second fourteen-year term, provided he or she was still alive at the end of the initial fourteen-year term. The study then will...

Contemporary trademark commentators frequently assert that trademark rights have been expanded too much, and that one of the root causes of this expansion is the tendency to treat trademarks as a form of property. This forthcoming book chapter places the proprietary model of trademarks in its...

This paper discusses the overlap and interaction between patents and trade secrets in the United Kingdom, with relevant comparisons to United States law. It considers the use of trade secrets protection as an alternative or complement to patent protection