Academic

Lui on the Foundatoins of American Copyright Law

By Lawrence Solum

Lydia Si-Ngaw Lui (William Mitchell College of Law) has posted Foundations of Modern American Copyright (Intellectual Property Research Series, Vol. 1, No. 2) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

"The progress of copyright law does not take place by revolutions, but by successive stages. It resembles the growth of a city, in which, as time goes on, some parts are torn down and others are devoted to new uses, while the plan remains the same and the great historic structures are preserved." - Richard DeWolf

This paper is an attempt to examine these ?great historic structures? of American copyright law through an analysis of the precursors of United States copyright, early statutory provisions, doctrinal developments, and statistical data gathered from all the American copyright cases brought between 1790, the year of the first federal copyright statute, and 1909, the year of the modern 1909 Copyright Act.

While a comprehensive summation of hundreds of copyright cases may be nearly impossible, what is evident from these cases is the continuing struggle in American jurisprudence to find the proper balance between the private rights of creators and the general rights of the public. In essence, where should the balance lie?

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on June 15, 2009 (boomark / email).