Copyright in Cyberspace Copyright Law Larry Lessig David Post Eugene Volokh

Copyright in Cyberspace Copyright In Cyberspace Consider the following situations: –You buy a piece of software and it to five friends. –You download an article from a newspaper's Web page and post in on an electronic bulletin board. –You take a post from one news group and forward it to another news group. –You respond to someone's discussion list post, and quote part of his post in yours Each of these examples implicates copyright law. In each of them there's at least a possibility that you'd be violating the law (though we'll find that in at least some of them you're probably safe).

Copyright in Cyberspace Copyright Law usually gives a copyright owner the exclusive right to control copying of a writing (or recording or picture or electronic transcription).

Copyright in Cyberspace Pretty much all writings are copyrighted How to obtain a copyright –You don´t need to send it in to the Library of Congress. –You don´t need to put a copyright notice on it. –Your work is copyrighted THE MOMENT IT´S WRITTEN DOWN. you need to do *absolutely nothing* except for writing it down. Two limitations –Extremely short writings –If you simply copy what someone else has done, without adding anything new of your own

Copyright in Cyberspace Electronic copying Things that are written down electronically are just as protected by copyright as things that come out on paper. –If you download an article from a newspaper Web site and forward it to a news group, you've made copies. –If someone saves your in an archive, he's made copies. –If you quote someone's newsgroup post in your response to the post, you've made copies. All of above might be infringements

Copyright in Cyberspace In some of these situations, the copies might be legal, –because they are EXPLICITLY ALLOWED by the copyright owner (you might have seem some online documents which specifically allow readers to copy them), or –because they are FAIR USES or, –because they are allowed by IMPLIED LICENSES. If you made copies and above three situations did not hold, you violate the copyright law.

Copyright in Cyberspace It’s okay to copy facts and ideas There are some things that aren't "copying" for copyright purposes: Copying the FACTS from someone else's work isn't considered copying. If a physicist discovers a law of nature, or a historian uncovers some facts about the past, everyone will be free to copy this information. And this is true even if they've invested years of effort into their discoveries - facts are in the public domain. But copying the *words* someone uses to express the facts, and often the *selection* and *arrangement*;of the facts, still isn't allowed. Copying an IDEA from someone else's work isn't considered copying for copyright purposes (though in some situations it might violate rights under the *patent* laws). Thus, even if I'm the first person to think about writing a courtroom drama set in a virtual cybercourt, everyone is free to copy this idea.

Copyright in Cyberspace Implied License Example You post something to a discussion list. I quote your message in my response. Have I acted illegally? Probably not, though your message is copyrighted, and I copied it. Your posting the message to a discussion list almost certainly gives others an "implied license" to quote it. When a copyright owner acts in such a way that *reasonable people would assume that he's allowing them to make copies*, the law interprets his conduct as creating an "implied license.“ Implied licenses can always be EXPRESSLY REVOKED, just by saying so in a way that potential copiers will see.

Copyright in Cyberspace Fair Uses The fair use doctrine asks several questions: –Is your use noncommercial? –Is your use for purposes of criticism, comment, parody, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research? –Is the original work mostly fact (as opposed to mostly fiction or opinion)? –Has the original work been published (as opposed to sent out only to one or a few people)? –Are you copying only a small part of the original work? –Are you copying only a relatively insignificant part of the original work (as opposed to the most important part)? –Are you adding a lot new to the work (as opposed to just quoting parts of the original)? –Does your conduct leave unaffected any profits that the copyright owner can make (as opposed to displacing some potential sales OR potential licenses of reprint rights)?

Copyright in Cyberspace The more YES answers there are to the above questions, the more likely it is that your use is legal. The more NO answers there are, the more likely it is that your use is illegal. Sometimes even a few YESes will lead to a finding of fair use; sometimes even a few NOes will lead to a finding of no fair use. Often even the sharpest lawyers won't be able to predict the result.

Copyright in Cyberspace Some Fair Use Examples You get a personal message and you pass it along to one other person. PROBABLY UNFAIR, though you might still have an implied license. (For instance, if the message asks for help on a nonprivate matter, there might be an implied license to pass it along to others who might be able to help.) You download an article from a newspaper's Web site and post it to a news group. The site carries advertising, and says "Do not send any copies of these articles to other people" (thus negating any implied license). PROBABLY UNFAIR, since if this becomes commonplace, fewer people would access the Web site and see the advertising. You forward someone's message from one publicly accessible news group to another news group. PROBABLY FAIR, because the message was published, and because the person posting it has no commercial interest in selling the message. You quote a few sentences from a news article that you downloaded. PROBABLY FAIR, because it's only a few sentences.