This lesson explores the application of the fair use doctrine, a defense to copyright infringement, in the special context of parody, based on the guidance provided by the Supreme Court in Campbell v. Acuff Rose Music, 510 U.S.
Read moreThis lesson explores a copyright holder's right to control the performance and display of the related work of authorship.
Read moreThis lesson explores the concept of a "joint work" in copyright law, including the legal standards which determine whether a work has been jointly authored as well as the legal consequences that attach to this characterization.
Read moreBecause copyright creates ownership rights in original expression, the private property interests of copyright owners sometimes come into conflict with the public's interest in disseminating knowledge, expressing ideas, or simply enjoying, sharing, and building upon the protected expression. This lesson introduces the basic concept of fair use in copyright law, and offers numerous examples to test the student's ability to apply the balancing test of 17 U.S.C. § 107.
Read moreCopyright Law may seem shrouded in mystery: how can you create, transfer, and protect property interests in something intangible? This lesson provides an overview of how it is done, focusing on copyright protection for music. This focus takes advantage of the multimedia capacity of the program; for example, you can listen to two musical works to determine whether one infringes the other, and you can listen to the parody version of "Pretty Woman" that figured in a decision of the United States Supreme Court.
Read moreThis lesson introduces the student to the doctrine and processes involved in interpreting state and federal statutes. Statutes are a critical part of every substantive area of the law, so this is important background for every student, legal professional, lawyer and judge.
Read moreThis lesson will introduce you to the GNU/Linux operating system and its interaction with Copyright Law. You can complete this lesson without any exposure to the law of copyrights, but the other CALI lessons on copyright will explore basic copyright concepts. This lesson will be helpful to students studying concepts of ownership in the copyright context. After this lesson and the model answers to the essay questions, you will understand the interaction between current copyright and licensing law and the open source movement's freedom.
Read moreThis program takes the student through the basics of a particular area of trademark law — the geographic scope of trademark protection. It includes the general common law principles as enunciated in early Supreme Court cases (Hanover, Rectanus) as well as zone of natural expansion. The program also contains complete coverage of Lanham Act principles including constructive notice, constructive use, section 33 and the limited area defense, concurrent use, and the need for confusion (Dawn Donut).
Read moreThis lesson offers an introduction to the doctrine of functionality, which operates as a defense prohibiting anyone from claiming an exclusive right in functional shapes, elements, or aspects of a product or product packaging. The protectability or registrability of a trademark depends on a factual determination of a design's functionality. The functionality doctrine attempts to weigh the public and private interest in copying design features against a trademark owner's inherently anticompetitive objective to avoid consumer confusion.
Read moreThis lesson examines the scope of one of the exclusive rights belonging to a copyright owner -- the right to create derivative works based on the copyrighted work, under 17 U.S.C. § 106(2).
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