Intellectual Property
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| Apercus means a series of discerning perceptions or insights. Apercus.org offers articles and information about the intersection of law, technology, and culture not found in the Berkeley Technology Law Journal. We are an official student organization at Boalt Hall Law School at the University of California, Berkeley. |
Intellectual Property |
| Selling Wine Without Bottles: The Economy of Mind on the Global Net. One of the earliest and most influential papers on the problems of ownership, sale, and distribution of intellectual property on the Internet. Barlow argues for an entirely new framework of laws to meet the challenge. By John Perry Barlow. |
| Copyright and the Global Library: Going With the Flow of Technology. This paper argues that the current approach to protecting copyrighted material on the Internet should be replaced by a model in which unauthorised duplication is not done because it is not convenient on the user's part, not because it is not possible. Such a model rejects the pay-per-view concept in favor of a relatively expensive membership fee by which the user of an `Open Global Library' acquires the personal right to unlimited downloading. Implications and problems for advertising, private enterprise, and environmental protections are discussed. Published in First Monday. By Roberto Zamparelli. |
| The Street Performer Protocol and Digital Copyrights. An electronic-commerce mechanism to facilitate the private financing of public works. Using this protocol, people would place donations in escrow, to be released to an author in the event that the promised work be put in the public domain. Published in First Monday 1999. By John Kelsey and Bruce Schneier. |
| Napster Preliminary Injunction Ruling: Summary and Potential Implications. On July 26, 2000, Chief Judge Marilyn Hall Patel granted a preliminary injunction against Napster. Although the preliminary injunction has been stayed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals pending appeal, Patel's rationale may have important implications not just for Napster, but for a wide range of Internet companies. Published and written by Morrison & Foerster. |
| On Authors' Rights in Cyberspace: Questioning the Need for New International Rules. Decisions over access to electronic information are being made on national and international levels with little regard for new technologies and their impact on new markets. New regulations may indeed only restrict access to information and impede the application of new technologies by authors and their audiences. Additionally, these legal solutions may only retard the development of more appropriate models for cyberspace. Samuelson discusses how the availability of information over the Internet will affect authors, readers, and publishers. Published in First Monday. By Pamela Samuelson |
| The Fiction of Copyright: Towards a Consensual Use of Intellectual Property. Bruns examines the paradigm shift that has occurred in our thinking about copyrighted material. This article compares the Cathedral system where knowledge is tightly controlled and only the finished product is released with the Bazaar system where the community collaborates throughout the creative process. Published in M/C. By Axel Bruns |
| Copyright Law and Electronic Access to Information. This paper focuses on pending proposals to amend copyright law to enhance the control copyright owners wield over the appearance of their works on digital networks. These proposals would stifle libraries' use of the Internet. The paper is adapted from a speech given to the Library and Information Technology Association at the 1996 Annual Conference of the American Library Association. Published in First Monday. By Jessica Litman. |
| Last Writes? The Law Review in the Age of Cyberspace. This article assesses the history and future of the law review in light of changing technological and academic conditions. Published in First Monday. By Bernard J. Hibbits. |
| Beyond Preemption: The Federal Law and Policy of Intellectual Property Licensing. Proposed Uniform Commercial Code article 2B, which will govern transactions in information, will remake the law of intellectual property licensing in a radical way. But federal and state intellectual property policies impose significant limits on the ability of states to change these rules by contract law. One such limit is preemption, but preemption is unlikely to provide sufficient protection for the established rules of intellectual property law. Three other sets of doctrines will limit the ability of parties to set their terms by contract, even in the UCC 2B world. The first doctrine is copyright misuse, which has been applied against restrictive licensing provisions. The second set of doctrines provides that a number of licensing rules are decided as questions of federal, not state, law. The third doctrines are state public policies that cannot be overriden by contract. Taken together, these doctrines create a patchwork federal policy of intellectual property law that UCC 2B cannot alter. Published in California Law Review 1999. By Mark A. Lemley. |
| Privacy As Intellectual Property? The market incentives for firms to collect and process personal data are very high. Data about users is not only useful in assessing how a firm might improve its service for its customers, but it also has become a key commercial asset which firms use both for internal marketing purposes and for licensing to third parties. Although the Clinton Administration has worked very hard to persuade Internet economy firms to adopt privacy policies and practices to make users more comfortable about engaging in e-commerce transactions in cyberspace, these efforts have done little to overcome the inertia of the current technical and economic environment that is generally hostile to privacy interests. This symposium has been convened to consider whether the law should play a greater role in promoting greater information privacy in cyberspace. A draft of a forthcoming paper to be published in Stanford Law Review 2000. By Pam Samuelson, |
| Intellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure. The report of the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights, headed by the Chairman of the White House Information Infrastructure Task Force. |
| Digital Millenium Copyright Act. The complete DMCA statute with the Congressional Conference Report. |
| Avoiding Intellectual Property Problems. A guide to avoiding copyright, trademark, and patent infringement. Published by the Franklin Pierce Law Center. By Thomas G. Field, Jr. | Patently Bezos. The founder and CEO of Amazon.com (a company frequently criticized for amassing patents on "obvious" inventions like 1-click purchasing) has a plan to improve the patent system. Cave offers a short analysis. Published by Salon 2000. By Damien Cave |
| United States Patent 4,873,662. The British Telecom patent for hypertext linking. If upheld, British Telecom could conceivably collect royalties from ISP's and individuals navigating the Internet. Filed August 15, 1980. |
| First Monday is a peer-review journal publishing original articles about the Internet and the Global Information Infrastructure. |