Introduction to Copyright Law

What is copyright?

Set of exclusive rights granted to the author of a creative work
Limited period of time
Form of intellectual property, a category of virtual "property" that also includes:
- Trademarks
  - Protects consumers by enabling them to identify brands
- Patents
  - Incentivizes scientists, engineers to invent
- Trade secrets
The term "intellectual property" became popular in the 1960s
- Criticized for conflating different types of rights with different origins

Governed by Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the U.S. Constitution:

[The Congress shall have Power] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

and by Title 17 of the United States Code

Main benefit:
- Incentive for writers, artists to devote more time to creative works
Drawbacks:
- Forces consumers to pay higher prices
- Restricts remixing by artists
Balance between economic incentives and free speech

Since we're doing this class in the United States, we'll focus on United States copyright law, but we'll occasionally discuss the copyright laws of other countries.

What exclusive rights are protected?

The right to copy the work
The right to distribute copies of the work via sale, rental, giving away, or lending
The right to publicly perform or display the work
The right to prepare derivative works based on the work
The right to digitally transmit sound recordings

Three types of transfers:

Nonexclusive license
- Lets another person use one or more rights to the work
- Retains the right to license those rights to others
- Needn't be in writing
- Includes all public licenses (GPL, Creative Commons)
Exclusive license
- Copyright owner allows only one person to make use of one or more rights
- The same rights can't be given to others, but other rights can
- Must be in writing
Assignment
- Transfers ownership of the work along with all exclusive rights

How long are these rights protected?

United States
- Life + 70 years
- Works for hire: 95 years after publication or 120 years after creation
Has increased over time, most recently in 1998
- Berne Convention: life + 50 years
- Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will mandate life + 70 years

What can be copyrighted?

Original works of authorship
- Literary works (e.g. books, magazines, websites, computer programs)
- Artistic works (e.g. paintings, sculptures)
- Movies (audiovisual works)
- Sound recordings
- Choreographic works
- Architectural works
Expressions, not ideas
- Not facts
"Sweat of the brow" doctrine
- Creativity is required for copyright protection
- No amount of hard work makes a work copyrighted

What can't be copyrighted?

Useful articles
- Software (whether in source and binary form) is considered a literary work
- Layouts of integrated circuits are similarly protected for up to 10 years
Laws, judicial opinions
US: Works by the federal government
- UK: Crown copyright exists but most UK government works are licensed under the Open Government Licence, which is similar to the Creative Commons Attribution License

What exceptions to copyright are there?

Fair use / fair dealing
First-sale doctrine
Backup (archival) copies of software
Compulsory and mechanical licenses

History of copyright law

Statute of Anne (UK)

Prehistory - English royal printing monopoly
Writers wanted temporary mini-monopolies over their own books in order to raise prices and ensure that they made money from every copy

Berne Convention

Guaranteed copyright protection to foreign works
Life + 50 years
Moral rights
- Rights granted to author
- Can never be transferred, but in many countries can be waived
Established a copyright governing body
- Later became part of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a division of the UN

Free and open source software movement

UNIX
- Used in academia - researchers shared their innovations in computer science
- AT&T started selling computer hardware and software separately, used copyrights to enforce this
1983: GNU Project
- Stands for "GNU's Not UNIX"
- Richard M. Stallman et al. rewrote the UNIX operating system from scratch
- Licensed under GNU General Public License, the first "copyleft" license
  - Gives end users the right to redistribute and modify the code
  - Must reproduce copyright notice and license
  - Must provide source code
  - Must similarly license modifications ("copyleft" or "share alike")
  - Cannot put additional restrictions
1985: Free Software Foundation
- Advocates for software freedom
Linux
- Kernel created by Linus Torvalds (who later created Git)
- Licensed under GPLv2
- Frequently used with GNU OS (combo known as "Linux" or "GNU/Linux")
Open source movement
- Eric S. Raymond et al. rebranded free software as a business opportunity and development model, not a political movement
- The Cathedral and the Bazaar
  - Decentralized, organic "bazaar" model of software development more efficient than centralized, planned "cathedral" model
- 1998: Open Source Initiative
Today, many companies contribute to open source software

Responses to new technologies

Audio and video streaming
Peer-to-peer file sharing

1998

Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)
- Title I
  - Implements a WIPO treaty
  - Bans circumvention of DRM (digital rights management)
    - Intended to protect against illegal copying
    - Also used to prevent people from unlocking their phones, tablets
  - Library of Congress can make exceptions
    - Can jailbreak: Phones, tablets
    - Can't jailbreak: E-readers, game consoles
- Title II
  - Created a safe harbor for ISPs and websites hosting user generated content
  - Service provider must respond "expeditiously" to notifications of alleged copyright infringement
Copyright Term Extension Act
- Increased copyright term to life + 70 years

2011: SOPA and PIPA

Were proposed because foreign websites engaging in copyright infringement couldn't be prosecuted in U.S. courts
Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
- Sponsored by Congressman Lamar Smith (R-TX)
PROTECT IP Act (PIPA)
- Sponsored by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
  - Opposed by his colleague Bernie Sanders (I-VT) :P
What the bills would do
- Attorney General could block DNS resolution (domain name → IP address), payment processing for foreign websites s/he deems dedicated to trafficking of counterfeit and pirated goods
Criticism
- Could lead to censorship
Key players
- Supporters
  - Film studios (MPAA, Disney, Warner, etc.)
  - Music publishers (RIAA)
  - Broadcasters
  - Video game studios (ESA)
  - Sports organizations (involved in broadcasting)
  - Formerly: GoDaddy
- Opponents
  - Google
  - Facebook
  - NY Times
  - Wikimedia Foundation (runs Wikipedia)
  - Electronic Frontier Foundation
  - Free speech advocates
Protests
- "Black out"
- Aaron Swartz

Thanks!

These lesson notes are published under the Creative Commons Attribution–ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

veeara282/copyright-101.md