RESEARCH | Intellectual Property in the New Technological Age | Updates | Copyright Law

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Copyright Law

> Requirements

  1. Original Works of Authorship
  2. Fixation in a Tangible Medium of Expression
  3. Formalities

> Subject Matter

  1. Limitations on Copyrightability: Distinguishing Function and Expression
  2. The Domain and Scope of Copyright Protection

> Ownership and Duration

  1. Initial Ownership of Copyrights
  2. Duration and Renewal
  3. Division, Transfer, and Reclaiming of Copyrights

> Traditional Rights of Copyright Owners

  1. The Right to Make Copies

    2. In Assessment Technologies of WI, LLC v. WIREdata Inc., 350 F.3d 640(7th Cir. 2003), the seventh circuit reversed the lower court’s grant of permanent injunction holding that Assessment Technologies (“AT”) had no copyright claim where WIREdata only wanted data that is in public domain, although the data was now compiled in a program, Market Drive, copyrighted by AT and may not be extracted without running Market Drive.

    Judge Posner, writing for the court, emphasized that the data requested by WIREdata, property information collected to assess the value of the properties for property-tax purposes, was in public domain; it was collected by municipalities, not AT, and was subject to Wisconsin’s “open records” law. As such, Judge Posner concluded that the data was not copyrightable and as long as the Market Drive program was not copied, there was no direct or contributory infringement. Judge Posner proposed two ways for extracting the data without copying the program. First, use the tools in the Market Drive program to extract the data and place it in a separate file. Second, use Microsoft’s Access, a compatible database program, to extract the data. Noting that the two proposals may not be feasible under the municipalities’ license agreements with AT or Microsoft, Judge Posner nevertheless dismissed AT’s contract argument as irrelevant because WIREdata is not a party to the contract. As for the possibility that the data may not be extractable without copying the Market Drive program, Judge Posner reasoned that even in that scenario AT does not have a copyright claim. Citing Sega Enterprises Ltd. v. Accolade, Judge Posner observed that since the only purpose of copying the program is to extract the uncopyrighted material and not to compete with AT in selling the Market Drive program, such “intermediate copying” would be a fair use. As for AT’s argument that extracting the data would create a derivative work, Judge Posner rejected it stating that a derivative work cannot be created from an unoriginal work and must itself contain some originality—a factor that the public domain data does not have. Lastly, Judge Posner cautioned that preventing the municipalities from extracting the data by asserting contract or other rights might constitute copyright misuse.

  2. The Right to Prepare Derivative Works
  3. The Distribution Right
  4. Public Performance and Display Rights
  5. Moral Rights
  6. Contributory Infringement

> Defenses

  1. Fair Use
  2. Other Defenses

> Indirect Liability

> Digital Copyright Law

  1. Digital Copyright Legislation
  2. Enforcement
  3. Fair Use in Cyberspace

    4. [On Page 609, replace Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corp. with:]

    Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 487 F.3d 701 (9th Cir. 2007)

> International Copyright Law

> Enforcement and Remedies

If you notice any errors, please contact Raghav Krishnapriyan at .