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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

 

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