Copyright, Spring 2007

Brooklyn Law School

Professor Wendy Seltzer, email wendy.seltzer@brooklaw.edu
Visiting Assistant Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School
Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School
Office Hours: Tuesdays 3-5, Room 701, or by appointment
Phone: 718.780.7961

Website: <http://wendy.seltzer.org/brooklaw/07copyright/>.
The website and online syllabus are the authoritative source of course information.

Wiki: There is also a course wiki, http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/brooklaw/Copyright_Law where you can add your own news, views, and questions (click the "edit" link on any of the wiki pages). Interesting news, examples, and questions you post might well end up part of a future lecture! Course material such as lecture slides will be posted there as well.

Text: Cohen, Loren, Okediji & O’Rourke, Copyright in a Global Information Economy (2d ed. Aspen, 2006); supplement optional. The Copyright Act is also available online at <http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/> and <http://www.copyright.gov/title17/>. Pull up any Copyright Act section with Get Copyright.

Exam: The final exam will be an eight-hour take-home, available at any time during the examination period (April 30 - May 10). It will include short-answer (1-3 paragraph) and longer essay-style questions, and will indicate the relative weight of questions.

I will be available in person to review and answer questions before April 23 and by phone/email/im (skype wendyseltzer) before April 30.

Practice exams: See Prof. Jones 1999 (PDF). For further practice, Prof. Weinreb 2004; Prof. Miller Dec. 2003; Prof. Miller May 2003. Note that the subject matter of these courses does not match precisely with ours (for example, we did not cover transfers and termination or the changing formalities and terms, while they spent less time on DMCA).

Class meets Monday and Wednesday(2) 11:00AM – 12:50PM, room 503
PDF schedule, by date

Syllabus

1. Introduction: Casebook pp. 3-42

Subject matter

2. Fixation and Originality: pp. 45-72
§§ 101, 102, 117

3. Idea/Expression Dichotomy: pp. 72-90
§ 102(b)

4. Derivative Works and Compilations: pp. 90-110
§§ 101, 103, 106

5. Authorship: pp. 110-38; Note on U.S. Government works p. 134
§§ 101, 201, 105
(for next lecture) Formalities and Term: skim pp. 139-152, pp. 158-167 (Eldred v. Ashcroft)
Skim the tables of contents of Title 17, Chapters 2, 3, and 4. § 302

Drawing Boundaries

6. Useful Articles: pp. 209-235
recall § 102(b); note § 113

7. Computer Software: pp. 235-66
recall § 117

8. Characters: pp. 280-290; Databases: PP. 291-310

Copyright Scope and Infringement

9. Reproduction and Substantial Similarity: pp. 313-336
§§ 106, 501

10. Substantial Similarity: pp. 336-64

11. Distribution, Display: pp. 365-384, 432-43

§§ 109,

12. Derivative Works: pp. 385-408; Public Performance: pp. 427-32 newly added; Moral Rights
§§ 103, VARA, 106A

Fair Use

§ 107

13. Fair Use in Cultural Interchange: pp. 525-61

14. Fair Use in Technical Interoperability: pp. 561-76

15. Fair Use, Market Failure or Productive Consumption: pp. 576-600

16. Copyright and the music industry: pp. 443-72
§§ 114, 115, AHRA: 1001, 1008.

Who’s infringing?

17. Secondary liability: pp. 473-525
§§ 501, 512

Copyright in the Digital Millennium

18.Technological Protection: pp. 603-40
§ 1201

19. Preemption, Contract, Misappropriation: pp. 650-62, 666-70, 699-717, 689-98

20. New approaches to copyright: Creative Commons, GNU General Public License (read the materials linked below)




Last updated: 04/20/07