Copyright Law Ronald W. Staudt

Class 13March 4, 2009

Copyright Challenge for Sites That Excerpt By BRIAN STELTER 3/1/2009 newyorktimes.comWhen the popular New York business blog Silicon Alley Insider quoted a

quarter of Peggy Noonan’s Wall Street Journal column in mid-February, the editor added a caveat at the end: “We thank Dow Jones in advance for allowing us to bring it to you.”

The editor added “in advance” because Dow Jones, the publisher of The Journal, had not given the blog permission to use the column. The excerpt was published with the assumption that it would be permitted under the “fair use” statute of copyright law.

…some media executives are growing concerned that the increasingly popular curators of the Web that are taking large pieces of the original work — a practice sometimes called scraping — are shaving away potential readers and profiting from the content.

With the Web’s advertising engine stalling just as newspapers are under pressure, some publishers are second-guessing their liberal attitude toward free content.

Ownership & Transfers Today:

Joint works: Intellectual concept of ownership

Thomson v. LarsonAalmuhammedGaiman

TransfersEffects v. CohenRecordation

§ 201.  Ownership of copyright

(a) Initial ownership. Copyright in a work protected under this title vests initially in the author or authors of the work. The authors of a joint work are co-owners of copyright in the work.

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Joint Works

A "joint work" is a work prepared by two or more authors with the intention that their contributions be merged into inseparable or interdependent parts of a unitary whole.

Thomson v. Larson

Facts Statute and Childress requirements

Intention that contributions be merged into a unitary whole AND

Contribution is independently copyrightable AND

Fully intended to be coauthors• Decisionmaking• Billing• Written agreements with 3rd parties

If not coauthor, what???

Aalmuhammed and Gaiman

Claim jumping by research assistants, editors, and former spouses, lovers and friends would endanger authors who talked with people about what they were doing, if creative copyrightable contribution were all that authorship required..

So what does it require???

Is there a case in which a copyrightable contribution is not needed to be a joint author?

§ 201.  Ownership of copyright (d) Transfer of ownership.

   (1) The ownership of a copyright may be transferred in whole or in part by any means of conveyance or by operation of law, and may be bequeathed by will or pass as personal property by the applicable laws of intestate succession.

   (2) Any of the exclusive rights comprised in a copyright, including any subdivision of any of the rights specified by section 106, may be transferred as provided by clause (1) and owned separately. The owner of any particular exclusive right is entitled, to the extent of that right, to all of the protection and remedies accorded to the copyright owner by this title.  

A "transfer of copyright ownership"

is an assignment, mortgage, exclusive license, or any other conveyance, alienation, or hypothecation of a copyright or of any of the exclusive rights comprised in a copyright, whether or not it is limited in time or place of effect, but not including a nonexclusive license.

§ 204.  Execution of transfers of copyright ownership

(a) A transfer of copyright ownership, other than by operation of law, is not valid unless an instrument of conveyance, or a note or memorandum of the transfer, is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed or such owner's duly authorized agent.

Divisibility

Gardner & sublicences But see, Traicoff, supp p. 17

Clearance issues

Effects v. Cohen The Blob “What we have here is a failu

re to compensate…” Policies favoring writing

Recordation Title 17 v. UCC

Student Research AssistantWebsite and introductory video

Student or I could beSole authorJoint author

Either could transfer © to other in advance Student could be an employee w/in scope—of

whom or what? I could be an employee w/in scope Commissioned work?

In 9 categories?Writing signed by both? Employee manual?

• WHEN? Implied license