Copyright law of the United States of America.

Issues for [1909-1949] include "Rules adopted by the Supreme Court of the United States for practice and procedure."

[Petition of Hilliard, Gray and Co. and 693 others remonstrating against an international copyright law, June 4, 1842].

Photocopy.

Copyright law revision. Hearings, Ninetieth Congress, first session, pursuant to S. Res. 37, on S. 597.

Hearings held Mar. 15-April 12, 1967.

General revision of the copyright law. Hearings, Seventy-first Congress, third session.

Mode of access: Internet.

Copyright law as a matter of (inter)national security? – The attempt to securitise commercial infringement and its spill-over onto individual liability

This article evaluates the way in which copyright infringement has been gradually shifting from an area of civil liability to one of criminal penalty. Traditionally, consideration of copyright issues has been undertaken from a predominantly legal and/or economic perspectives. Whereas traditional legal analysis can explain what legal changes are occurring, and what impact these changes may have, they may not effectively explain ‘how’ these changes have come to occur. The authors propose an alternative inter-disciplinary approach, combining legal analysis with critical security studies, which may help to explain in greater detail how policies in this field have developed. In particular, through applied securitisation theory, this article intends to demonstrate the appropriation of this field by a security discourse, and its consequences for societal and legal developments. In order to explore how the securitisation framework may be a valid approach to a subject such as copyright law and to determine the extent to which copyright law may be said to have been securitised, this article will begin by explaining the origins and main features of securitisation theory, and its applicability to legal study. The authors will then attempt to apply this framework to the development of a criminal law approach to copyright infringement, by focusing on the security escalation it has undergone, developing from an economic issue into one of international security. The analysis of this evolution will be mainly characterised by the securitisation moves taking place at national, European and international levels. Finally, a general reflection will be carried out on whether the securitisation of copyright has indeed been successful and on what the consequences of such a success could be.

On the Origin of the Right to Copy: Charting the Movement of Copyright Law in Eighteenth Century Britain (1695-1775)

Taking as its point of departure the lapse of the 1662 Licensing Act in 1695, this book examines the lead up to the passage of the Statute of Anne 1710 and charts the movement of copyright law throughout the eighteenth century, culminating in the House of Lords decision in Donaldson v Becket (1774). The established reading of copyright's development throughout this period, from the 1710 Act to the pronouncement in Donaldson, is that it was transformed from a publisher's right to an author's right; that is, legislation initially designed to regulate the marketplace of the bookseller and publisher evolved into an instrument that functioned to recognise the proprietary inevitability of an author's intellectual labour. The historical narrative which unfolds within this book presents a challenge to that accepted orthodoxy. The traditional analysis of the development of copyright in eighteenth-century Britain is revealed to exhibit the character of long-standing myth, and the centrality of the modern proprietary author as the raison d'etre of the modern copyright regime is displaced.

EU Copyright Law in Support of European Research & Education

In this brief an explanation is given why Exceptions in copyright legislation are of great importance to the free flow of knowledge, essential to education and research in the European Union. At present the Freedom of access to knowledge for EU citizens is trapped in a complex web of national laws and local licensing arrangements. The current EU copyright law does not enable the vision of either a "Europe of knowledge" in the Bologna Process or of a "unified" European Research Area to be realised. To address this Exceptions and limitations harmonised to fit best practice are required to allow content to move digitally across Member States in support of education, research and libraries. Support for open content licensing by the European Parliament will strengthen authors’ rights, meet the needs of researchers, teachers and learners, and enable the free flow of knowledge in support of the "fifth freedom".

Ética hacker y propiedad intelectual: una nueva perspectiva para abordar la normatividad sobre derechos de autor en el espacio digital

En el presente texto se busca mostrar las capacidades explicativas que puede tener la conjunción entre las perspectivas de la ética hacker y la defensa de la propiedad intelectual para dar cuenta de las reacciones generalizadas de rechazo ante las normatividades de derechos de autor en el espacio digital. Así, se lleva a cabo un resumen de los principios de cada una de estas perspectivas dando cuenta de sus capacidades explicativas y características teóricas para, posteriormente, aplicarlas a la realidad empresarial, laboral y de opinión en el marco social contemporáneo. Cómo conclusión de este trabajo se logra observar que a pesar de que en principio ambas perspectivas podrían parecer contradictorias, existen aspectos comunes que permiten vislumbrar como un trabajo en conjunto permitiría generar normatividades que se acoplen a las realidades contemporáneas.

Enforcing Copyright Infringements Online: In Search of Balanced Private International Law Rules

Enforcement of copyright online and fighting online “piracy” is a high priority on the EU agenda. Private international law questions have recently become some of the most challenging issues in this area. Internet service providers are still uncertain how the Brussels I Regulation (Recast) provisions would apply in EU-wide copyright infringement cases and in which country they can be sued for copyright violations. Meanwhile, because of the territorial approach that still underlies EU copyright law, right holders are unable to acquire EU-wide relief for copyright infringements online. This article first discusses the recent CJEU rulings in the Pinckney and Hejduk cases and argues that the “access approach” that the Court adopted for solving jurisdiction questions could be quite reasonable if it is applied with additional legal measures at the level of substantive law, such as the targeting doctrine. Secondly, the article explores the alternatives to the currently established lex loci protectionis rule that would enable right holders to get EU-wide remedies under a single applicable law. In particular, the analysis focuses on the special applicable law rule for ubiquitous copyright infringements, as suggested by the CLIP Group, and other international proposals.