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Copyright Law – Spring 2026

THIS IS THE HOME PAGE FOR LAW 5328 – COPYRIGHT LAW FOR THE SPRING 2026 EDITION OF THE COURSE.

The course will meet on Mondays and Wednesdays from 9:00 am to 10:20 am. The class will meet on ZOOM rather than face to face. Class meetings will not be recorded.

HOW TO READ THE SYLLABUS AND FIND THE READING ASSIGNMENTS

One assignment per class. Except as noted below, each assignment below corresponds tentatively to one class period, though the amount of material to be covered in class, the order of the assignments, and/or the contents of a particular assignment may be changed by prior announcement. Every effort will be made to incorporate new developments in trademark law into the syllabus, where appropriate.

The key cases. Some classes have more cases and pages than others. The key cases are noted with an asterisk (*). For some class meetings, no case is more “key” than others,

The reading materials are online. All of the assigned and optional readings for the course are available online, for free. You can read them online. You can download them to your own device(s). You can print them out. You can even combine them and have them printed and bound, as your own “book” copy. And, of course, you can edit them, annotate them, and cut them and paste them (or parts of them) in other things, such as course outlines. See the Important Course Information page for detailed information about the reading materials. Most of the assigned materials are available on this page as both .DOCX and .PDF files. A handful are available only as .PDF files.

Look up the statute. Within each assignment, the syllabus notes the required reading, including the principal case(s) covered in the text. In addition to the assigned readings, where a case or other material refers to the Copyright Act (Title 17 of the United States Code), students are responsible for locating and reading the section(s) of the Act to which the text refers. At least three free online resources are available for that purpose:

How to read. You still have lots to learn and lots to practice when it comes to reading primary source materials – cases and statutes – in law. How to Read a Legal Opinion by Professor Orin Kerr (UC Berkeley Law School) is an excellent primer when it comes to making sense of a single case. When it comes to making sense of a body of cases, additional tools are needed. My best initial advice is this: read each case both for its function (“what’s the rule?” “what’s the holding?” “what are the relevant facts?”) and also as literature. That may involve reading the case twice, or even three times. As you would do with a novel or a poem, bear in mind that reading involves making sense of settings, characters, motivations, conflicts, and resolutions. Legal cases are stories, in other words. Stories require reader involvement. What the reader takes away from a novel is based in part on what the reader knows about what other people (teachers, friends, family, colleagues, reviewers) take away from it. Students should talk to people – other people – about what they read. Interpretation is an ongoing, collective, collaborative process. Law often operates the same way: cases are important and useful for what they say about other, earlier cases, teaching readers (students, lawyers, judges, others) what those other cases “mean” as they exist in the world over time – “meaning” that includes both “this is what the law is” and also “this is what you can do with the law, as a lawyer.”

CALI Lessons. For several units, under the “Review” heading the syllabus includes references to review material identified as CALI Lessons. These are available via the TWEN page for this course. CALI is the “Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction,” a well-established nonprofit organization that produces high quality, free materials for law students. Each CALI lesson indicated as part of a unit on the syllabus offers a review of rules and principles of copyright that relate to the cases and statutes assigned for that unit.

Extras. Many of the assignments include links to optional (but possibly entertaining and useful) supplemental material. Some provides historical context for the assigned cases. Some consists of clips from motion pictures and television shows that illustrate copyright themes. There are music videos. In some cases, these, too, illustrate the assigned readings. In some cases, they are (one hopes) funny takes on relevant legal points. Some of the optional material contains spicy and/or possibly offensive [NSFW] – but contextually appropriate – language, sounds, and/or images.

Why the optional materials? Learning and knowing the law is difficult, but it is never enough. Great lawyers need to learn and know context. Copyright law, like any body of law, exists to solve social problems. As a solution, copyright law may not work terribly well, and it may create additional problems, but we start by talking about the problems that copyright evolved to solve. Some of those are ancient (the origins and character of knowledge, or “learning”). Some are recent, even modern (the origins and character of “originality” and “creativity” in art and entertainment.) We talk about other dimensions of those problems and their solutions. Copyright conflicts and copyright negotiations exist in companies, in markets, and among human beings. History matters. Culture matters. Economics and business matter. Systems matter. Other bodies of law matter, beyond copyright law and beyond intellectual property. Great lawyers need to learn how to investigate those things and how they relate to their clients and the problems that their clients are trying to solve.

New! Added: a page of student questions about copyright, and professor responses. Check back from time to time for new entries!

DAY BY DAY SYLLABUS AND READING ASSIGNMENTS

TOPIC 1: THE PROBLEMS THAT COPYRIGHT SOLVES (OR DOESN’T, OR CREATES)

Way back in the mid-19th century, Justice Joseph Story referred to copyright and patent as “the metaphysics of the law.” We start our “metaphysical” journey with two preliminary exercises that illustrate both why, in a way, copyright law has come to be and also why, in a way, copyright causes massive social, cultural, and economic problems. The first exercise focuses on “the work of authorship,” the created “thing” which is the object of copyright’s property-like character. When and why is a “work” a copyrightable “work of authorship”? When and why is that not the case? The second exercise focuses on the systems, patterns, practices, and industries that copyright sometimes enables and sometimes obstructs. These are the objects of copyright’s tort-like character.

CLASS 1

THE FIRST DAY OF CLASS: WHY COPYRIGHT? AND AN INTRODUCTION TO COPYRIGHT’S OBJECTS

Copyright law developed in the UK and later in the US to protect the business interests of printers and publishers, who invested money in machinery, labor, distribution systems, and “works” (the modern word) – human-produced things, usually text (to begin with) – that printers and publishers manufactured and sold in “copies.” Printers and publishers thereby invented the concept of “piracy” – unauthorized re-publication of those “works, which formed the core of copyright “infringement,” as originally understood.

History has given way to new and different justifications for copyright. Today the law is often characterized as offering incentives (motivations, and in both cases “protection”) to authors and creators. While the reasoning has changed, the “work” remains the unchanged core of copyright’s conceptual, economic, and legal mechanisms.

Required Readings

  • THE BIG QUESTIONS: Where does “culture” and “knowledge” – in documented, shareable, store-able forms – come from? Do “we” care? Should the legal system care? Is “copying” productive or generative (does copying help society produce more/better/different/more widely accessible “stuff”?)? Is copying harmful (does copying interfere with producing more/better/different/more widely accessible “stuff”?) When is copying something (some “thing”) socially, ethically, and economically acceptable? Permitted? Encouraged? In what respects should copyright law absorb and incorporate responses to those social, ethical, and economic questions?
  • THE ANSWERS turn out to be … complicated, and a lot turns on what the “thing” is and why someone might (want to) copy it. “Things,” including copyright “works,” do not simply exist in the wild; the law has to figure out what “things” are, and when, and why. [Students are *not* required to read the article that follows the hyperlink, but the statement is thought-provoking on purpose.] Matter matters. What the law says about “what is a thing?” has real consequences.
  • Is the Batmobile subject to copyright? DC Comics v. Towle [pdf] [docx]
  • What about Eleanor? Carroll Shelby Licensing, Inc. v. Halicki [pdf] [docx]
  • WATCH: Movie trailer #1 for “levels of abstraction” analysis: Rear Window (1954) – official trailer / and WATCH: Movie trailer #2 for “levels of abstraction” analysis: Rear Window (1954) – re-cut, modern trailer / and WATCH: Movie trailer #3 for “levels of abstraction” analysis: Disturbia (2012) trailer
  • Total PDF page count for cases: 21

Review

Optional Materials

Context relating to the required readings:

Context relating to the themes of this unit:

CLASS 2

WHY COPYRIGHT? AN INTRODUCTION TO COPYRIGHT’S INSTITUTIONAL SETTINGS

Required Readings

  • READ critically important history, theory, and public policy: Boyle & Jenkins, Ch. 1 [pdf] [docx] and (also) Ch. 10 [pdf] [docx]
  • CONTEXT MATTERS: For reasons having to do with history, politics, and economics, copyright law is expressed almost entirely in terms of rights and liabilities associated with individuals. Individuals act in groups, however, which means that copyright practice (and creative and knowledge-generating practice) operates almost entirely through institutions: companies; industries; professional, artistic, and research-based fields and disciplines; universities; galleries, libraries, archives, and museums; recognized social groups; and other things. In practice, is there “one copyright law,” or several?
  • A BIG QUESTION: Why and when (and how) should copyright law pay special attention to professional artists or creators? Read some brief, preliminary thoughts here.
  • The Music-Copyright Enforcers (New York Times) (August 6, 2010) (If the NYT website requires a subscription, find the article via the University Library System using Pitt credentials)
  • Science’s pirate queen, The Verge (February 8, 2018)
  • Total PDF page count for cases: 0
  • Other PDF pages: 67+

Review

Optional Materials

Context related to the required readings:

Context relating to the themes of this unit:

TOPIC 2: THE PURPOSES OF COPYRIGHT, AS MEASURED BY LIMITATIONS: FAIR USE

Copyright law courses usually begin with “the subject matter of copyright” and walk through the law using a “typical” infringement lawsuit as a template. A “work” earns a copyright. The copyright owner sues an infringer. Even if the defendant appears to infringe, “fair use” is offered as an affirmative defense.

So fair use shows up relatively late in the (usual) course. This (less usual) course is organized differently, partly because fair use is an “affirmative defense” only by custom and practice, not by the terms of the Copyright Act; partly because reasoning through the law of fair use illuminates the public policies (plural) animating copyright law as clearly as reasoning through the law of copyright “protection”; and partly because fair use is an intuitive place to start working through copyright problems and solutions. Fair use is interesting! It’s fun! It pulls on one’s intuition as strongly as “protecting copyright” does, often, and sometimes more so. And it is also unexpectedly difficult.

CLASS 3

FAIR USE BASICS – CULTURAL INTERCHANGE

Perhaps copyright really is meant to encourage, reward, or recognize advances in culture, knowledge, and learning. If so, then fair use should do that, too. But what are “advances” (or what U.S. copyright law refers to as “progress”)? Whose advances matter, and when, and how, and why? How might law support, enable, or at least not interfere with those advances? Fair use, on this interpretation, ought to support and enable new creative work and related knowledge- and culture-promoting processes.

Required Readings

Review

Optional Materials

Context relating to the required readings:

Context relating to the themes of this unit:

CLASS 4

FAIR USE BASICS – MARKET FAILURE OR “PRODUCTIVE CONSUMPTION”?

Perhaps copyright is meant to create and reinforce market exchange in copyright works, which means (primarily) authors and publishers and other distributors charging money (and earning profits, usually) sufficient for them not only to recoup the costs of production but also the costs of learning to create and to assemble the machinery and organizations needed to produce creative (or, at least, created) objects. In short, copyright might be less about the imaginations (of both creators and readers/listeners/viewers and the next generations of creators) and more about the money. Fair use, on this interpretation, ought not to interfere with “transactions,” especially those that involve paying for copies of copyright things, or access to them.

Required Readings

  • A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc. [pdf] [docx]
  • Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corp. [pdf] [docx]
  • De Fontbrune v. Wofsy [pdf] [docx]
  • Total PDF page count for cases: 32

Review

Optional Materials

Context relating to the required readings:

Context relating to the themes of this unit:

CLASS 5

THE CUTTING EDGE OF FAIR USE: WHAT IS ART? WHAT IS FUNCTION? DOES FAIR USE OPERATE DIFFERENTLY IN DIFFERENT INDUSTRIES, MARKET SECTORS, OR TYPES OF “WORK”?

Fair use is both more than “is the new use creative? v. does the new use undermine the copyright owner’s economic ambitions?” and also less. Where is fair use today?

To some scholars, lawyers, and advocates, fair use is an all-purpose “get out of copyright” card, playable whenever the copyright owner’s control over the work is deemed (or proved, by the evidence) to be arbitrary, or excessive, or invoked for reasons unrelated to copyright’s purposes, whatever those might be. To engage in fair use is, to some, to engage in free expression – a Constitutionally-protected right.

To others, fair use is an extraordinary and exceptional doctrine, to be used in a more confined set of cases that include (perhaps) certain sorts of “new creation” or “novel markets” and also (perhaps) some instances of socially or economically productive “spillovers” – third-party effects of the sort that computer software and computer networking (the Internet, included) make especially salient. How “confined” should “confined” be? Narrow, perhaps. (Everything is perhaps!) Economists, if not lawyers and judges, might declare that “spillovers” are the sorts of things that markets ought to embrace, rather than exclude.

Then again, late 20th century forms of “creativity,” such as post-modern art and computer programming, were barely within the reach of Congress when the Copyright Act of 1976 was being negotiated. Overly enthusiastic application of copyright’s exclusivities might shut down emerging practices of those sorts before law, culture, and society sort out which elements flourish most when they are not subject to copyright control, and which are better treated as parts of markets.

Required Readings

  • Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts v. Goldsmith [pdf] [docx]
  • Total PDF page count for cases: 54

Review

Optional Materials

Context relating to the required readings:

Context relating to the themes of this unit:

TOPIC 3: THE SUBJECT MATTER OF COPYRIGHT

Combined, the introductory material about copyright’s history and purposes and the dive into the rhythms of fair use provide a rich foundation for exploring copyright’s doctrinal and practical operations. We start by asking: what’s a copyright, anyway? That’s a difficult question. Copyright incorporates elements of common law property thinking, elements of common law tort thinking, elements of (unfair) competition law, and elements of privacy and the law of “personality,” especially in the civil law (that is: European) tradition. Let us start with something that seems easier, at least initially: what’s a copyright (or copyrighted) “work of authorship”? The law is “metaphysics” all the way down, unfortunately.

CLASS 6

FIXATION

Required Readings

  • Section 102(a) of the Copyright Act and relevant selections from Section 101
  • Williams Electronics, Inc. v. Artic International, Inc. [pdf] [docx]
  • Kelley v. Chicago Park District [pdf] [docx]
  • WATCH: Defender
  • WATCH: Defense Command
  • Total PDF page count for cases: 32

Review

Optional Materials

Context relating to the required readings:

Context relating to the themes of this unit:

CLASS 7

ORIGINALITY

Required Readings

  • Section 102(a) of the Copyright Act and relevant selections from Section 101
  • Meshwerks, Inc. v. Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., Inc. [pdf] [docx]
  • Mannion v. Coors Brewing Co. [pdf] [docx]
  • Thaler v. Perlmutter [pdf] [docx]
  • Total PDF page count for cases: 58

Review

Optional Materials

Context relating to the required readings:

Context relating to the themes of this unit:

Assignment Number One will be distributed around this time. The Assignment will be due on Friday, February 20, 2026.

CLASS 8

THE IDEA/EXPRESSION DISTINCTION

Required Readings

  • Section 102(b) of the Copyright Act and relevant selections from Section 101
  • Bikram’s Yoga College of India v. Evolation Yoga, LLC [pdf] [docx]
  • Corbello v. Valli [pdf] [docx]
  • Total PDF page count for cases: 30

Review

Optional Materials

Context relating to the required readings:

Context relating to the themes of this unit:

CLASS 9

AUTHORSHIP AND OWNERSHIP

Required Readings

  • Sections 201 and 202 of the Copyright Act and relevant selections from Section 101
  • Lindsay v. The Wrecked and Abandoned Vessel R.M.S. Titanic [pdf] [docx]
  • Garcia v. Google, Inc.* [pdf] [docx]
  • Aalmuhammed v. Lee* [pdf] [docx]
  • Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid [pdf] [docx]
  • Total PDF page count for cases: 56

Review

Optional Materials

Context relating to the required readings:

Context relating to the themes of this unit:

CLASS 10

FORMALITIES, PREEMPTION, AND STATE LAW

Required Readings

  • Sections 301, and 401 through 412, of the Copyright Act and relevant selections from Section 101
  • Michael J. Madison, Formalities [pdf] [docx]
  • Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. v. CBS, Inc. [pdf] [docx]
  • Bowers v. Baystate Technologies, Inc.* [pdf] [docx]
  • Georgia v. Public.Resource.org [pdf] [docx]
  • Total PDF page count for cases: 41
  • Other PDF pages: 14

Review

Optional Materials

Context relating to the required readings:

Context relating to the themes of this unit:

CLASS 11

BOUNDARY PROBLEMS – COPYRIGHT AND/VS. (DESIGN) PATENT LAW: USEFUL ARTICLES WITH PICTORIAL, GRAPHIC, OR SCULPTURAL (PGS) ASPECTS

Required Readings

  • Relevant selections from Section 101 of the Copyright Act (“Pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works”)
  • Mazer v. Stein [pdf] [docx]
  • Star Athletica v. Varsity Brands* [pdf] [docx]
  • Total PDF page count for cases: 41

Review

Optional Materials

Context relating to the required readings:

Context relating to the themes of this unit:

CLASS 12

BOUNDARY PROBLEMS – COPYRIGHT AND/VS. TRADEMARK LAW

Required Readings

  • Section 103 of the Copyright Act and relevant selections from Section 101
  • Dastar Corp. v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. [pdf] [docx]
  • Gilliam v. American Broadcasting Co. [pdf] [docx]
  • Re-read the Batmobile and Eleanor materials from Class 1
  • Total PDF page count for cases: 26

Review

Optional Materials

Context relating to the required readings:

Context relating to the themes of this unit:

TOPIC 4: THE STATUTORY RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS

As a species of property, copyright – like all property systems – consists of a set of limited legal rights, referred to (sometimes inappropriately) as “exclusive” rights. Those rights often operate in a tort-like way (subject to flexible standards, modified per context) rather than as absolutes. The statutory list of the copyright owner’s exclusive rights, and their definitions and interpretations, blends historical attachments and contemporary business demands. Changes in the technologies and mechanics of printing, publishing, distribution, and circulation of copyrighted works suggests that a list that may have been sensible 50 years ago (more or less), when it was adopted by Congress, is less than clear and consistent today. “Metaphysics” change.

Many of the cases below feature claims of infringement in musical compositions and sound recordings. The Music Copyright Infringement Resource, hosted at George Washington University, contains an enormous volume of information about the works at issue in music cases.

Others involve visual art. The Visual Arts Infringement Database at the Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts at Columbia Law School likewise offers an exhaustive inventory of relevant information about works at issue in art litigation.

CLASS 13

THE ELEMENTS OF COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT

Required Readings

Review

Optional Materials

Context relating to the required readings:

Context relating to the themes of this unit:

CLASS 14

THE REPRODUCTION RIGHT

Required Readings

  • Section 106(1) of the Copyright Act and relevant selections from Section 101
  • Steinberg v. Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. [pdf] [docx]
  • Rentmeester v. Nike, Inc.* [pdf] [docx]
  • Skidmore v. Led Zeppelin* [pdf] [docx]
  • Total PDF page count for cases: 53

Review

Optional Materials

Context relating to the required readings:

Context relating to the themes of this unit:

CLASS 15

THE DISTRIBUTION RIGHT AND THE FIRST SALE DOCTRINE [EXHAUSTION]

Required Readings

  • Sections 106(3) and 109(c) of the Copyright Act and relevant selections from Section 101
  • Bobbs-Merrill Company v. Straus [pdf] [docx]
  • Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [pdf] [docx]
  • Capitol Records, LLC v. Redigi Inc.* [pdf] [docx]
  • Total PDF page count for cases: 37

Review

Optional Materials

Context relating to the required readings:

Context relating to the themes of this unit:

  • Hachette Book Group, Inc. v. Internet Archive [pdf] [docx] “Controlled digital lending,” which the Internet Archive argued is the equivalent of a library’s exercising its rights under the first sale doctrine, is held to be infringing.
  • The United Kingdom and Ireland each have a Public Lending Right, which does not exist in the United States. Read more here.

CLASS 16

THE RIGHT TO PREPARE DERIVATIVE WORKS

Required Readings

  • Sections 106(2) of the Copyright Act and relevant selections from Section 101
  • Lee v. A.R.T. Company [pdf] [docx]
  • Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc. v. Nintendo of America, Inc.* [pdf] [docx]
  • Micro Star v. FormGen, Inc. [pdf] [docx]
  • Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. v. RDR Books* [pdf] [docx]
  • Total PDF page count for cases: 45

Review

Optional Materials

Context relating to the required readings:

Context relating to the themes of this unit:

Assignment Number Two will be distributed around this time. The Assignment will be due on Friday, April 3, 2026.

CLASS 17

THE PUBLIC PERFORMANCE AND PUBLIC DISPLAY RIGHTS

Required Readings

  • Section 106(4), 106(5), 109(c), and 110 of the Copyright Act and relevant selections from Section 101
  • Columbia Pictures Indus. v. Redd Horne, Inc. [pdf] [docx]
  • Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc. [pdf] [docx]
  • American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. v. Aereo, Inc. [pdf] [docx]
  • Total PDF page count for cases: 30

Review

  • Slides
  • Recording of the class [the recording is from Spring 2024; the Spring 2025 session captured video but not audio. Ugh. Sorry!]
  • CALI lesson(s): Rights of Public Performance and Display

Optional Materials

Context relating to the required readings:

Context relating to the themes of this unit:

CLASS 18

“MORAL RIGHTS” IN US LAW AND ELSEWHERE

Required Readings

  • Section 106A of the Copyright Act and relevant selections from Section 101
  • Cheffins v. Stewart [pdf] [docx]
  • Castillo v. G&M Realty L.P. [pdf] [docx]
  • Total PDF page count for cases: 29

Review

Optional Materials

Context relating to the required readings:

Context relating to the themes of this unit:

CLASS 19

BUILDING COPYRIGHT BUSINESSES AND INSTITUTIONS – OF CUSTOMS, PRACTICES, LICENSES, DEALS, AND THE MECHANICS OF TRANSFERS

Copyright ownership and the exclusive rights of the copyright owner are not only the essential elements in cases alleging copyright infringement. They are also the building blocks for companies, industries, business sectors, and complex “creative” (or sometimes industrial, or both) artistic projects and projects. How, exactly, do those building blocks come together? This unit and the next blend copyright and contracts concepts and doctrines.

Required Readings

  • Section 204 of the Copyright Act and relevant selections from Section 101
  • Effects Associates, Inc. v. Cohen [pdf] [docx]
  • Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers, Ltd. v. The Walt Disney Company* [pdf] [docx]
  • Vernor v. Autodesk, Inc. [pdf] [docx]
  • F.B.T. Productions v. Aftermath Records* [pdf] [docx]
  • Total PDF page count for cases: 41

Review

Optional Materials

Context relating to the required readings:

Context relating to the themes of this unit:

CLASS 20

BUILDING COPYRIGHT BUSINESSES AND INSTITUTIONS – OF CUSTOMS, PRACTICES, LICENSES, AND THE MECHANICS OF TRANSFERS

Required Readings

  • Jacobsen v. Katzer [pdf] [docx]
  • Great Minds v. FedEx Office & Print Services, Inc. [pdf] [docx]
  • Total PDF page count for cases: 17

Review

Optional Materials

Context relating to the themes of this unit:

TOPIC 5: COPYRIGHT ENFORCEMENT – WHO IS LIABLE, HOW, AND WHEN?

As in every field of law, practical and procedural questions intersect with “substantive” legal questions in complex and important ways.

CLASS 21

DURATION, RENEWALS, AND TERMINATION OF TRANSFERS

Required Readings

Review

Optional Materials

Context relating to the required readings:

Context relating to the themes of this unit:

CLASS 22

IDENTIFYING DEFENDANTS (AND BUSINESS PARTNERS)

Required Readings

  • Sections 106 and 501 of the Copyright Act and relevant selections from Section 101
  • Religious Technology Center v.  Netcom On-Line Communication Services, Inc. [pdf] [docx]
  • Fonovisa, Inc. v. Cherry Auction, Inc. [pdf] [docx]
  • MGM Studios Inc. v. Grokster Ltd.* [pdf] [docx]
  • Total PDF page count for cases: 54

Review

Optional Materials

Context relating to the required readings:

Context relating to the themes of this unit:

  • Should tertiary liability exist? No. Perfect 10, Inc. v. Visa Int’l Service Ass’n [pdf] [docx]
  • The “volitional conduct” (causation) requirement today: Perfect 10, Inc. v. Giganews, Inc. [pdf] [docx]
  • Bringing together copyright, licensing, derivative works, remixes, digital technology, the maker community, and functional and three-dimensional “things” (s/k/a “PGS works”): the new-for-2025 “Benchy” and “Boaty” brouhaha in the 3D printing world. This Reddit thread explains. As does the 3D Printing Professor, on YouTube.

CLASS 23

REMEDIES

Required Readings

  • Sections 502 through 507 of the Copyright Act
  • Engel v. Wild Oats [pdf] [docx]
  • Bouchat v. Baltimore Ravens Football Club, Inc. [pdf] [docx]
  • Salinger v. Colting* [pdf] [docx]
  • United States v. Liu [pdf] [docx]
  • Total PDF page count for cases: 41

Review

Optional Materials

Context relating to the required readings:

Context relating to the themes of this unit:

  • A summary of one creator’s efforts to secure recognition and compensation for his work: Frederick Bouchat and the Baltimore Ravens
  • The limits of copyright, or, one law professor learns about the new vocabulary of digital piracy: Their Songs Were Stolen by Phantom Artists. They Couldn’t Get Them Back (New York Times) (January 15, 2024)
  • What’s a work of authorship (1)? Bryant v. Media Right Productions [pdf] [docx]
  • What’s a work of authorship (2) (an entirely different result)? Columbia Pictures Television v. Krypton Broadcasting of Birmingham, Inc. [pdf] [docx]
  • The late Senator Everett Dirksen is famous for being credited – incorrectly – with the quote: “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you’re talking about real money.” Similarly, a recent Supreme Court opinion that seems to be interesting only to copyright-meets-civil-procedure nerds may turn out to have deep and lasting impacts on the scale of damages awards in copyright cases. Read Warner Chappell Music, Inc. v. Nealy [pdf] [docx]

TOPIC 6: “REGULATORY” COPYRIGHT

The core of copyright law consists of a handful of key principles and policies, elaborated through voluntary transactions (deals) and litigation (courts). But copyright is increasingly intertwined with the details of both statutory interpretation and administrative law. More than one copyright scholar has compared the complexity of copyright – unfavorably – to the tax code. The details matter, not only because they give us copyright winners and copyright losers but also because like all of copyright, they shape the content and character of culture. “Metaphysics,” like onions (and Shrek), has layers.

CLASS 24

SERVICE PROVIDERS, PLATFORMS, AND THE CONTINUING RELEVANCE [?] OF THE DIGITAL MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT ACT (DMCA)

Required Readings

  • Section 512 of the Copyright Act
  • EMI Christian Music Group, Inc. v. MP3tunes, LLC [pdf] [docx]
  • Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment [pdf] [docx]
  • Total PDF page count for cases: 34

Review

Optional Materials

Context relating to the required readings:

Context relating to the themes of this unit:

CLASS 25

COMPULSORY AND STATUTORY LICENSING, AND COLLECTIVE RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS

Required Readings

Review

Optional Materials

Context relating to the required readings:

  • A district court ruled that SoundExchange does not have standing to enforce royalty claims against Sirius XM, throwing into question the collective rights structure of the Music Modernization Act. Soundexchange, Inc. v. Sirius XM Radio Inc. [pdf] [docx]
  • Before Taylor, in her time, Madonna was the one. LISTEN: Madonna, Vogue. Watch Madonna’s legendary MTV Awards performance. Watch Jennie Livingston’s Paris is Burning (1990), the incredible documentary film that first brought the New York scene to broader audiences and that Madonna shredded by adding a commercial, pop sensibility.
  • LISTEN: The Salsoul Orchestra, Ooh, I Love It (Love Break)

Context relating to the themes of this unit:

TOPIC 7: THE FUTURE OF COPYRIGHT (OR “DE-REGULATORY” COPYRIGHT)?

Copyright law has roots in 18th century England and 15th century Venice, yet it seems to be in almost constant motion. Because, of course, both culture and technology are in almost constant motion. Both “reform” and more comprehensive changes are frequently on the table.

CLASS 26

THE FUTURE OF COPYRIGHT?

Law Reform Past, Law Reform Present, and Law Reform Yet to Come / The Future of Copyright? Sci-Fi, or More of the Same

Required Readings

Review

Optional Materials

Context relating to the required readings:

Context relating to the themes of this unit:

Assignment Number Three will be distributed during the last week of class. The Assignment will be due on the last day of exams, which is May 6, 2026.

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