The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School is a leader in the study of the law and policy around the Internet and other emerging technologies.
Copyright and Fair Use
A healthy copyright system must balance the need to provide strong economic incentives through exclusive rights with the need to protect important public interests like free speech and expression. Fair use is foundational to that balance. It's role is to prevent copyright from stifling the creativity it is supposed to foster, and from imposing other burdens that would inhibit rather than promote the creation and spread of knowledge and learning.
The Fair Use Project (FUP) was founded in 2006 to provide legal support to a range of projects designed to clarify, and extend, the boundaries of fair use in order to enhance creative freedom and protect important public rights. It is the only organization in the country dedicated specifically to providing free and comprehensive legal representation to authors, filmmakers, artists, musicians and other content creators who face unmerited copyright claims, or other improper restrictions on their expressive interests. The FUP has litigated important cases across the country, and in the Supreme Court of the United States, and worked with scores of filmmakers and other content creators to secure the unimpeded release of their work.
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Non-Residential Fellow
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Brett Frischmann
Affiliate ScholarBrett Frischmann’s expertise is in intellectual property and internet law. After clerking for the Honorable Fred I. Parker of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and practicing at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering in Washington, DC, he joined the Loyola University Chicago law faculty in 2002. He has held visiting appointments at Cornell and Fordham. Read more » about Brett Frischmann
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Lauren Gelman
Non-Residential FellowLauren is an experienced attorney, frequent speaker and start-up advisor who has worked in the field of Internet law and policy since 1995. She is the founder of BlurryEdge Strategies, a legal and strategy consulting firm located in San Francisco that advises technology companies and investors on cutting-edge legal issues. Lauren previously led the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School and taught at the Law School and the Department of Engineering. Read more » about Lauren Gelman
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Jennifer Granick
Director of Civil LibertiesJennifer Granick is the Director of Civil Liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. Jennifer returns to Stanford after stints as General Counsel of entertainment company Worldstar Hip Hop and as counsel with the internet boutique firm of Zwillgen PLLC. Before that, she was the Civil Liberties Director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Jennifer practices, speaks and writes about computer crime and security, electronic surveillance, consumer privacy, data protection, copyright, trademark and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Read more » about Jennifer Granick
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First Amendment Challenges in the Digital Age
By Marvin Ammori • January 31, 2012 at 6:43 am
Next Friday, February 10, the Stanford Technology Law Review is holding its annual symposium, and this year's topic is an important one: First Amendment Challenges in the Digital Age. Of the three panels, one is devoted to privacy and another to copyright. The third is devoted to a long, ambitious law review article ... written by me. Read more » about First Amendment Challenges in the Digital Age
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Fire in the Blood
By Documentary Film Program • January 26, 2012 at 4:03 pm
An intricate tale of “monopoly, medicine and mass murder”, FIRE IN THE BLOOD is the story of how Western governments acting on behalf of pharmaceutical companies blocked access to low-cost AIDS drugs for the Third World in the years after 1996 – causing ten million or more unnecessary deaths – and the improbable group of people who decided to fight back. Read more » about Fire in the Blood
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Megaupload: A Lot Less Guilty Than You Think
By Jennifer Granick • January 26, 2012 at 11:47 am
The recent Department of Justice decision to indict Megaupload for copyright infringement and related offenses raises some very thorny questions from a criminal law perspective. A few preliminaries: I’m responsible for the musings below, but I thank Robert Weisberg of Stanford Law School for taking the time to talk through the issues and giving me pointers to some relevant cases. Also, an indictment contains unproven allegations, and the facts may well turn out to be different, or to imply different things in full context.
DMCA SAFE HARBOR: BELIEVE IT AND IT WILL BECOME REAL: As a matter of criminal law, the discussion of whether Megaupload did what it needed to do to qualify for the DMCA Safe Harbor misses the point. Did they register an agent? Did they have a repeat infringer policy? These are all interesting CIVIL questions. But from a criminal law perspective, the important question is did Defendants BELIEVE they were covered by the Safe Harbor? This is because criminal infringement requires a showing of willfulness. The view of the majority of Federal Courts is that “willfulness” means a desire to violate a known legal duty, not merely the will to make copies. Read more » about Megaupload: A Lot Less Guilty Than You Think
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CIS Is Going Dark To Stop SOPA
By Anthony Falzone • January 17, 2012 at 10:45 am
A wave of opposition has crashed over the House's Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Senate's Protect I.P. Act (PIPA) based on the tremendous threat they pose to free speech and innovation online. It appears the House may be poised to abandon SOPA after the White House issued a statement making clear it would not support the bill. But the Senate is still pressing ahead with PIPA's most dangerous provisions intact, including those that would force internet service providers to block access to entire sites through DNS blocking and other means that threaten both the universality and the security of the internet itself.
If this legislation passes -- in this version or another -- legitimate websites will be threatened. Some will disappear. Tomorrow, the CIS website will disappear (along with many others) to protest the misguided approaches SOPA and PIPA employ, and to demonstrate the threat they pose. We'll be back on Thursday. In the meantime, read up on the dangers these bills pose, and what you can do to make a difference.
If you want take your site down, here are some tools from CloudFlare and Webmonkey that make it easy. Read more » about CIS Is Going Dark To Stop SOPA
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PROTECT IP Act (S.968) and Stop Online Privacy Act (H.R.3261)
Author(s):Marvin AmmoriPublication Date:December 8, 2011Publication Type:Regulatory FilingLetter to Congress explaining that proposed copyright legislation would violate the First Amendment and be struck down in court. Read more » about PROTECT IP Act (S.968) and Stop Online Privacy Act (H.R.3261)
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Cariou v. Prince - Amicus Brief
Author(s):Anthony FalzoneDaniel NazerJulie AhrensPublication Date:November 2, 2011Publication Type:Litigation BriefAmicus brief filed in the Second Circuit on behalf of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts urging the appeals court to reverse a district court decision that ignored established fair use principles that many artists rely upon in creating their work. Read more » about Cariou v. Prince - Amicus Brief
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A Legitimate Interest in Promoting the Progress of Science: Constitutional Constraints on Copyright Laws
Author(s):David OlsonPublication Date:October 13, 2011Publication Type:Academic WritingThe Supreme Court certified two questions in Golan v. Holder: (1) Does section 514 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (“URAA”) violate the Progress Clause of the Constitution? (2) Does the URAA violate the First Amendment? This Essay argues that section 514 violates the Progress Clause’s requirement that copyright laws “promote the Progress of Science.” This is because the statute bequeaths copyright status without in return achieving any net increase in the creation or dissemination of creative works. Read more » about A Legitimate Interest in Promoting the Progress of Science: Constitutional Constraints on Copyright Laws
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Golan v. Holder - Petitioners' Reply Brief
Author(s):Anthony FalzoneDaniel NazerJulie AhrensPublication Date:August 31, 2011Publication Type:Litigation BriefSupreme Court Reply Brief filed by Petitioners. Read more » about Golan v. Holder - Petitioners' Reply Brief
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Gaylord v. U.S. Postal Service
We filed an amicus brief in the Federal Circuit on behalf of the Warhol Foundation and Warhol Museum, contemporary artists and law professors in support of the U.S. Postal Service, urging affirmance of the district court’s finding of fair use. Read more » about Gaylord v. U.S. Postal Service
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Rowling v. RDR Books
We defended the publisher of the Harry Potter Lexicon against suit from J.K. Rowling and Warner Brothers. Read more » about Rowling v. RDR Books
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Lennon v. Premise Media
Yoko Ono and EMI sued a documentary filmmaker for using a short clip from the John Lennon song “Imagine” as part of a critique of the lyrics of the song. We defended the filmmaker and successfully argued that the use of the copyrighted song was fair use. Read more » about Lennon v. Premise Media
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Kahle v. Gonzales
In this case, two archives challenged statutes that extended copyright terms unconditionally—the Copyright Renewal Act and the Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA)—as unconstitutional under Copyright Clause and the First Amendment. Read more » about Kahle v. Gonzales
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Can You Trademark Your Pot?
Date published:August 27, 2012Kal Raustiala and Chris Sprigman, continuing their excellent blogging (soon to be in book form) about markets succeeding in absence of intellectual property, have taken a look at the question of whether or not different brands of marijuana can be covered by trademark. With the increasing legality of medical marijuana, it's not uncommon for different strands to get their own brands. However, as the two note, plant varieties cannot be trademarked, but you can build a brand on top of one. Read more » about Can You Trademark Your Pot?
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Copyright Vs. Creativity
Date published:August 24, 2012 -
Publicity rights up in the air
Date published:July 23, 2012The current crop of cases are an important opportunity for an appellate standard, said Julie Ahrens, an attorney and associate director of the Fair Use Project at Stanford Law School. Ahrens filed an amicus brief supporting Electronic Arts in the Hart case on behalf of three nonprofit organizations, including the Digital Media Law Project, and 10 individual law professors. "We're looking for a clear, predictable rule that limits the application of publicity rights and protects free speech rights," Ahrens said.
Read the full story at the original publication link below. Read more » about Publicity rights up in the air
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Christopher Sprigman on creativity without copyright
Date published:July 17, 2012
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Protect Your Rights: Fair Use - NYC Documentary Film Festival (Past Event)
November 14, 2012IFC CenterExpected to Attend: Peter Jaszi (Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic, American University Washington College of Law), Julie Ahrens (Center for Internet & Society, Stanford Law School), Dan Satorius (moderator). Read more » about Protect Your Rights: Fair Use - NYC Documentary Film Festival
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Meet the Center for Internet and Society 2012 (Past Event)
October 17, 2012Stanford Law SchoolCome meet CIS and hear about our exciting work and ways to get involved. Read more » about Meet the Center for Internet and Society 2012
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ONA12 Law School for Digital Journalists (Past Event)
September 20, 2012Hyatt Regency, San FranciscoThe Online News Association, in conjunction with the UNC Center for Media Law & Policy, the Stanford Law School Center for Internet & Society and the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, presents the Third Annual Law School for Digital Journalists, part of the Thursday Workshops at ONA’s 2012 Conference & Awards Banquet, Sept. 20-23. Read more » about ONA12 Law School for Digital Journalists
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Smashing the Future for Fun and Profit (Past Event)
July 25, 2012Las Vegas, NVHas it really been 15 years? Time really flies when keeping up with Moore's law is the measure. In 1997, Jeff Moss held the very first Black Hat. He gathered together some of the best hackers and security minds of the time to discuss the current state of the hack. A unique and neutral field was created in which the security community--private, public, and independent practitioners alike—could come together and exchange research, theories, and experiences with no vendor influences. That idea seems to have caught on. Jeff knew that Black Hat could serve the community best if it concentrated on finding research by some of the brightest minds of the day, and he had an uncanny knack for finding them. Read more » about Smashing the Future for Fun and Profit
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Sonia Katyal - Contrabrand: Art, Advertising and Property in the Age of Corporate Identity (Audio)
March 7, 2012
Stanford Center for Internet and Society Speakers Series Talk - Read more » about Sonia Katyal - Contrabrand: Art, Advertising and Property in the Age of Corporate Identity (Audio)
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Sonia Katyal - Contrabrand: Art, Advertising and Property in the Age of Corporate Identity (Video)
March 7, 2012
In her talk, based on her forthcoming book from Yale Press, Contrabrand: Art, Advertising and Property in the Age of Corporate Identity, Sonia Katyal will discuss the intersection of art, commercial speech, and trademark law within the First Amendment, and will show how the law has shifted in response to the constitutional challenges the branding movement has created. In her talk, Katyal will focus on the "antibranding" movement in popular art and culture, which she defines to include the expressive activities of artists and activists who direct their energies towards challenging corporate branding. The greatest threat to cultural and artistic freedom, she argues, stems not from the pervasive power of the government, but instead from the powerful reach of corporate branding over artistic and consumer response. Read more » about Sonia Katyal - Contrabrand: Art, Advertising and Property in the Age of Corporate Identity (Video)
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PROTECT IP/SOPA - 2012 STLR Symposium - First Amendent Challenges in the Digital Age (Audio)
March 1, 2012
STLR Symposium 2012 - Co-Hosted by the Center for Internet and Society Read more » about PROTECT IP/SOPA - 2012 STLR Symposium - First Amendent Challenges in the Digital Age (Audio)
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PROTECT IP/SOPA - 2012 STLR Symposium - First Amendent Challenges in the Digital Age (Video)
March 1, 2012
STLR Symposium 2012 - Co-Hosted by the Center for Internet and Society
February 10, 2012
Audio VersionModerator: Declan McCullagh, Chief Political Correspondent, CNET
Panelists:
Corynne McSherry, Intellectual Property Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation;
Mike Masnick, Editor, Techdirt Blog;
Betsy Zedek, Senior Counsel, Content Protection, Fox Group Legal
A.J. Thomas, Partner, Jenner & Block Read more » about PROTECT IP/SOPA - 2012 STLR Symposium - First Amendent Challenges in the Digital Age (Video)