The Internet and the Law WeeSan Lee

Intellectual Property Law Copyright Law Trademark Law Patent Law First Amendment Issues References

Copyright Law To protect the expression of ideas, eg.  Graphic images, sound files, messages, programs Things can’t be copyrighted  Idea itself (not tangible), logo that hasn’t been created, facts, names, short phrases

Copyright Law To register officially  $30 application fee to the U.S. Copyright Office  Don’t use poorman’s copyright method Copyright is good for:  The life of the author + 70 years  If the work is made as work for hire, it’s 95 years instead

Copyright Law When something is copyrighted, it means that only the author has the right to copy it Or permission from the author  Sometime, the permission comes at a price “Happy Birthday to You”  Copyrighted in 1935 by the Summy Company  Will be expired in 2030 in the US  Expired in 1985 (+50 years) in other countries  Acquired by Time Warner in 1990

Copyright Violation? When viewing a web page, your browser download an article, graphics, etc to your local computer … Put the following in your homepage images/logo.gif In general, it’s ok to link to others, but, it’s copyright infringement to create the impression that it’s your work

Copyright Violation? DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) was passed in 1998 to address those electronic works related problems The TEACH Act of 2001 relaxed the copyright law for online distance education purposes

Trademark Law To protect company logos and names, products brand-names, slogan, acronym, etc. For example  Intel® Pentium® processor, iPhone® Generic terms & numbers can’t be a trademark, eg.  Windows, No expiration through renewal

Patent Law To protect the discovery from being capitalized upon by another Patent-granting test  The product must serve some useful purpose  The product must be explicitly detailed

First Amendment Issues Focus on Freedom of Speech Does SPAM enjoy First Amendment protection?  Not anymore Are content filtering devices considered a contradiction to the First Amendment?  K-12 are required to install filtering devices

References Internet Effectively  Ch 14 - The Internet and the Law World Intellectual Property Organization  Copyright of “Happy Birthday to You” song  Poorman’s copyright  Intel trademark  Windows trademark  

Homework 10 Read "RIAA FAQ":  Read the law about copying CDs:  List ALL the DO's and DONT's Due next Monday 11:55pm  Be advised to submit early, say by end of this week