Tag: Intellectual Property Law

Underground Appeal: A Sample of the Chronic Questions in Copyright Law Pertaining to the Transformative Use of Digital Music in a Civil Society – Note by Chris Johnstone

From Volume 77, Number 2 (January 2004)
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Throughout the 1970s, the Bronx borough of New York City was perceived as a microcosm of desolate American urban hopelessness. Within this economically barren wasteland, the city’s culture cultivated a colorful new form of musical art, organically sown from the seeds of the past. What was born as a fringe musical movement has evolved into an American cultural mainstay. Today, hip-hop music experiences tremendous mainstream success, both as a credible art form and as a business. Yet the success and proliferation of this genre has largely relied on the use of samples of past funk, rock, and soul compositions.

Copyright law was established as a mechanism for the promotion of innovation. In the realm of digital sampling, however, its role remains somewhat unclear. It is obvious that unauthorized copying of original compositions should be unlawful, but the extent of this protection remains a doctrinally elusive concept when applied to small or manipulated fragments of music. Specifically, the issue of digital sampling suffers from a lack of clear judicial guidance. Although sampling can clearly be translated into standard copyright doctrine, its exact fit has yet to be definitively declared by the judiciary. District courts have only sporadically tackled the topic, deterring potential litigants who fear the consequences of inconsistent doctrinal application.

This Note will look at the issue of digital sampling through the lens of recent commentary that suggests that copyright law exists, in large part, for the purpose of reinforcing democratic principles such as informed debate, pluralism, and civic participation. It will attempt to unravel the tangled doctrine regarding digital sampling to demonstrate the pitfalls of the present regime, and will later suggest more appropriate guidelines for the recording industry that will minimize unnecessary fees and eliminate deadweight economic loss.

 

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Copyright Law and Free Speech After Eldred v. Ashcroft – Article by Michael D. Birnhack

From Volume 76, Number 6 (September 2003)
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Eldred v. Ashcroft, as decided by the Supreme Court in January 2003, added another chapter regarding the relationship between copyright law and freedom of speech to the judicial “chain novel” that has been in the writing for the past three decades. The Court affirmed the constitutionality of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 (“CTEA”), which extended the copyright term by twenty years, both for existing works and for new works. As in previous chapters, the Court reached the conclusion that there is no conflict between the two legal fields. It repeated the judicial sound bite that “the Framers intended copyright itself to be the engine of free expression.” Eldred nicely fits the conflict discourse, which is mostly one of denial. But Eldred also included novel and interesting elements that offer a new direction to the conflict discourse, or at least a potential for redirection.

Eldred raises many intriguing copyright law and constitutional law questions. Here, however, I wish to focus on the possible ramifications the case might have on the conflict discourse with respect to its constitutional level. Surprisingly, Eldred is the first facial constitutional challenge to copyright law in 213 years. As copyright law continues to expand into new territories and in unpredictable ways, and as new bills are introduced at a staggering rate to further the scope of the rights of copyright owners, it is crucial that we study the contours of copyright law. This need is especially acute in light of the Court’s comment that “[w]hen, as in this case, Congress has not altered the traditional contours of copyright protection, further First Amendment scrutiny is unnecessary.”

In this Article, I wish to challenge the constitutional dimension of the judicial rejection of the conflict argument, which concerns the conflict between copyright law and the First Amendment. I will structure the critique along the lines of an important distinction. When we pause and ask what it is that the courts have been denying in rejecting the conflict argument, we see, after close study of over thirty cases that addressed the conflict argument, that, surprisingly, courts reject different things at different points. This leads us to identify two kinds of conflict: one is internal to copyright law, and the other is external to it. These two conflicts derive, respectively, from an internal view of the relationship of copyright law and free speech, and also from an external view.

 

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