Critical Copyright, and more:
my essays, linked and glossed
For my critical approach, recapped
and illustrated, see my Principles
for Deciding Hard Copyright Cases. For all my publications, many linked, see my résumé.
Intellectual
Property
Why can’t we apply
the law of intellectual property simply and coherently? This law seems to keep
falling apart at the seams, while failing to cope with the information
explosion prompting it. In the first essay linked below, I broach the
historical dynamic of this law and new lines of research. In the second essay
below, I distinguish approaches to holding this law within cogent limits. In
the third essay, a dialogue between a lawyer and a philosopher, I critique the
economic analysis of this law.
· Paul Edward Geller, Dissolving
Intellectual Property, in Intellectual Property: Bridging Aesthetics
and Economics, ed. Ysolde Gendreau (Éditions Thémis, 2006), p. 1, also in European Intellectual Property Review [EIPR],
vol. 28 (2006), p. 139
· Paul Edward Geller, Delimiting
Intellectual Property: Distinct Approaches to Spillovers, in Spory o własność intelektualną: Księga jubileuszowa dedykowana
Profesorom Januszowi Barcie i Ryszardowi Markiewiczowi, ed. Andrzej Matlak
and Sybilla Stanisławska-Kloc (Wolters Kluwer Polska, 2013), p. 293
· Paul Edward Geller, Opening
Dialogue on Intellectual Property, in Juriste sans frontières
: Mélanges Ejan Mackaay, ed. Stéphane Rousseau (Éditions Thémis, 2015), p.
341
Copyright
and related rights in media productions
Only with time, after
the advent of print, were authors granted rights to control the exploitation of
their works. Now, digital technologies facilitate recasting and redisseminating
works more easily and broadly than ever before, undercutting creators’ control.
In the first essay linked below, I analyze tensions in the theories guiding the
historical rise of authors’ rights and reconceptualize these rights to resolve
ensuing issues. In the second essay, I survey the history of copyright practice
up to the start of this millennium and explore options for reforming laws at
that juncture.
· Paul Edward Geller, Toward an
Overriding Norm in Copyright: Sign Wealth, Revue Internationale du Droit d'Auteur [RIDA], no. 159
(1994), p. 2
· Paul Edward Geller, Copyright History and the Future: What's Culture Got to Do With
It?, Journal of the
Copyright Society of the USA, vol. 47 (2000), p. 209
What should copyright
protect? And how far should it do so? The first essay linked below analyzes a
key decision declining to protect mere data. But what to do in cases of
creatively derived works in which copyright seems to be infringed? For example,
look at Hiroshige’s prints “copied” in Van Gogh’s studies: Trees
in Blossom and The
Bridge in the Rain. Should a prior creator, like Hiroshige, be entitled to
have a later one, like Van Gogh, barred from recasting his work? In the second
essay below, I argue to the contrary, laying out guidelines for tailoring
judicial remedies in such cases. In the third essay, I refine judicial methods
for reaching such decisions. Check out, too, my principles
for deciding hard copyright cases.
· Paul Edward Geller, Copyright
in Factual Compilations: US Supreme Court Decides the Feist Case, International
Review of Industrial Property & Copyright Law [IIC], vol. 22 (1991), p.
802
· Paul Edward Geller, Hiroshige vs. Van Gogh: Resolving the Dilemma
of Copyright Scope in Remedying Infringement, Journal of the Copyright Society of the USA,
vol. 46 (1998), p. 39
· Paul Edward Geller, A German Approach
to Fair Use: Test Cases for TRIPs Criteria for Copyright Limitations?, Journal of the Copyright Society of the USA,
vol. 57 (2010), p. 553
Copyright laws arose
in Europe and spread worldwide. In the first essay linked below, I ask how
treaties may transplant such laws, allowing for cultural pluralism. In the
second essay below, I reconsider the framework for copyright treaties in view
of defusing endemic conflicts of laws in cross-border cases. In the third
essay, I analyze how to resolve such conflicts in cases online, even when
rights to privacy or free expression come into play. For my systematic practice
guide to the field, go to International
Copyright.
· Paul Edward Geller, Legal
Transplants in International Copyright: Some Questions of Method, UCLA Pacific Basin Law Journal, vol. 13
(1994), p. 199
· Paul Edward Geller, Rethinking
the Berne-Plus Framework: From Conflicts of Laws to Copyright Reform, European
Intellectual Property Review [EIPR], vol. 31 (2009), p. 391
· Paul Edward Geller, The
Celestial Jam Session: Creative Sharing Online Caught in Conflicts of Laws, European
Intellectual Property Review [EIPR], vol. 37 (2015), p. 490
Patent
and other rights in technologies and designs
Swamped, the patent
system slows down the feedback of new technologies into research and
development worldwide. In the essay linked below, I propose a pair of measures
that, in tandem, might help solve resulting problems. One measure would give
notice online of innovative technologies; another would settle disputes among
claimants.
· Paul Edward Geller, An
International Patent Utopia?,
European Intellectual Property
Review [EIPR], vol. 25 (2003), p. 515
Cyberlaw: governance within global networks
Well over a century
ago, a pair of treaties were concluded to assure the protection of intellectual
property in many countries. The resulting regime, still operative as a default
framework though since amplified, governs a patchwork of territorial laws. In
the essay linked below, I contemplate how governance may be globally networked
in the field.
· Paul Edward Geller, From
Patchwork to Network: Strategies for International Intellectual Property in
Flux, Duke Journal of
Comparative & International Law, vol. 9 (1998), p. 69
