Intellectual Property Law

Intellectual Property Law: Case I :By:

Ceyhun Gurkan (NYU Law School – INT Law 09) Andrew Mason (NYU Law School – TORT 09) Julia Tomars (Harvard Law School – Criminal Law 08)Stephanie Dawson (Yale Law School – Jurisdiction 08) Kaze Dillon (Columbia Law School – Contract Law 07)

Submitted to the Department of TORT for thedegree of Law at the New York University LawSchool.October 27, 2009.

The authors hereby grants to MIT permission toreproduce and to distribute publicly paper andelectronic copies of this thesis document in whole orin part in any medium now known or hereaftercreated.

Introduction:

The struggle to adapt existing intellectual property law tocontemporary computer technology presents one of the greatestlegal challenges created by the ongoing technological revolution.Many have questioned whether the current foundation of intellectual property law can be adapted to control the excesses of this technological revolution while many others argue that theexisting legal framework can successfully accommodate thechanges. Due to this new technology, legislation has beenintroduced to amend several sections of United States Code Title17. [FN1] This new legislation seeks to amend the existing law to provide additional protection for the producers of intellectualproperty to encourage them to contribute more of their protectedworks and ideas into the National Information Infrastructure (NII).This paper will attempt to determine whether these proposedchanges could have a significant and detrimental effect upon therights of the consumers of intellectual property.The number of personal computers currently in use inAmerica has grown exponentially over the last several years andthe trend is predicted to continue unabated. [FN2] Additionally,current estimates of Internet usage vary between 16.4 to 22 millionadult American users. [FN3] The sheer number of computer users,combined with the exponential rate of growth of persons withaccess to computer technology has many persons concerned aboutthe impact of this technology on their current and future rightsunder existing intellectual property law. Accordingly, in Februaryof 1993,President Clintoncreated theInformation Infrastructure

Task Force(IITF) to assist in the formation and execution of theClinton Administration's "vision for the National InformationInfrastructure." [FN4] Recently, legislation has been introduced inboth theSenateandHouse of Representatives[FN5] to codify the changes to copyright law suggested by the IIFT in theirWhitePaper. [FN6] The purpose of amending any law is to change the rights and duties of the parties involved, and it should not beperformed without hesitation. Furthermore, the resulting judicialimplementation of the law does not always directly coincide withthe voiced opinions of the drafters and supporters of thelegislation. Therefore, the actual text of the legislation should bescrutinized as well the arguments of the supporters and opponents.

Current State of the Law:

It would be worthless to attempt to predict changes in the lawwithout first discussing the current state of the law. Unfortunately,the entire field of intellectual property law can oftentimes seemconfusing and intimidating to even the most seasoned thinkers.Unlike many areas of law, the field of intellectual property law isoften so technical that many of the common sense, knee-jerk reactions that guide our thinking process are noticeably absent.Therefore, not many lawyers seek to venture into the highlyspecialized realm of intellectual property law. With this in mind,this essay is written for those whose legal education may not haveincluded a significant amount of intellectual property law.

The Written Law:

For the uninitiated, the fundamental purpose of intellectualproperty law is to provide a reasonably limited time and scope fora person to have a monopoly for exploiting her original ideas orworks. At first glance, the Federal government providing a person