FALL 2008

Copyright Law
 
Course No. 9200 703 (and 803) 801
TuW 6:30-7:55 p.m.
Room L-134
Professor Jay Dratler, Jr.
Room 231D (IP Alcove)
(330) 972-7972
dratler@uakron.edu
Copyright © 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008   Jay Dratler, Jr.   For permission, see CMI.
 

Copyright Law, Fall 2007

FINAL EXAMINATION

Instructions

1.  E-mail at-home examination.  This is an e-mail, at-home examination.  Subject to the limitations stated below, you are free to take it at any time and place of your choosing.

2.  Limitations.  Your completion of this examination is subject to the following limitations:
3.  Materials.  Because this is an at-home exam, you may use any written materials that you have on hand, provided they are: (1) published or (2) prepared by you.  You may also use your computer to browse the Web, including the material posted for this course on the Law School’s Website.  However, the questions have been designed so that the following materials should be sufficient: (1) the casebook (if any), supplement (if any), and Website for this class (including any materials from it that you have downloaded, printed out and annotated), (2) any statutory supplement that you have used for this class (including your own, but no one else’s, annotations); and (3) an outline that you have prepared.  I encourage you to make your outline short, both so it will be usable and so you will have an “overview” of the course.

4.  Strategy for Answering the Questions.  
5.  Call of the Question.  BE SURE TO READ THE CALL OF EACH QUESTION CAREFULLY AND TO ANSWER ONLY THE QUESTION(S) ASKED.

6.  Submitting your Answers.  Detailed instructions for submitting your answers appear at the end of the examination.  Please follow them carefully.

Good luck!

Question 1
(Ninety Minutes)


A

WebTrans is an automated Internet translation service.  Established as a service for recent immigrants, it allows users to translate excerpts of electronic text written in the English language into a number of foreign languages used by immigrants, including Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, and Arabic.

The translation is completely automated and electronic.  The home page contains a list of “translate to” languages on a drop-down menu.  Once the user has selected a language, a page containing instructions in that language appears.  The instructions invite the user to cut and paste English text into a box on the page, and then to click on a “translate” button (in the selected language) beneath the box.  The translation appears below the button, in the selected language.

Although WebTrans prepares its translations automatically and electronically, its translation algorithms are especially good.  Two of WebTrans’ principals teach linguistics at major universities.  Another is an expert on computer algorithms that mimic human language.  As a result, tests have shown that WebTrans’ translations are usually indistinguishable from those produced by native speakers of the “translate to” language.


B

WebTrans’ home page contains some promotional material.  Just below the title and logo, the following appears:

“WebTrans is Your Personal InterpreterTM”
Translate excerpts from anything in English
into your native tongue.  Then send the translation
to your family and friends!”

This same slogan and advice appear, translated into the appropriate language, on each native-language page that appears after the user selects a “translate to” language.

After each translation, an “E-mail This Translation” button appears below the translation.  If the user clicks on the button, a pop-up window appears in the “translate to” language, instructing the user how to e-mail the translation of the excerpt (but not the original English version) by filling in e-mail addresses and clicking on a “send” button.  The user can send the translation to as many as twenty-five addressees, and instructions in the “translate to” language describe how.


C

There are some limitations.  Users must register for the service, providing their names and contact information, including a valid e-mail address.  Also, the system limits each user to no more than five translations per day and no more than twenty per month.  Furthermore, each translation is limited to no more than 500 words.  If the excerpt inserted in the “translate” box exceeds that length, the system translates only the first 500 words.  Only the translation of those words appears in the translation and can be e-mailed to others.

A special Web page labeled “Limitations and Restrictions” describes these limitations.  It appears only in the English language and only in response to clicking on a “Limitations and Restrictions” button in English at the bottom of the home page, or a similar button in the “translate to” language at the bottom of every translation page.

At the bottom of every page of translation, in the appropriate “translate to” language, appears the following text:

“WARNING
“Material that you translate may be copyrighted.   If it is, your
use of WebTrans’ translation service may be copyright
infringement.   There are civil and criminal penalties for
copyright infringement.   It is your responsibility to
determine whether anything you translate is copyrighted and,
if so, whether your translation infringes the copyright.”

D

Occasionally WebTrans has surveyed its users to determine how they use its service.  While not scientifically rigorous, the surveys suggest that the following are the most popular general categories of use:

Materials Translated
Source of English Material to be Translated Percentage of Use
E-mails received from family and friends 13%
Commercial e-mail (including spam)            22%
On-line shopping websites            19%
Commercial news and information websites (e.g., CNN, Yahoo!, New York Times) 23%
Religious websites 14%
Miscellaneous or unknown   9%


E


WebTrans’ managers have just received information that an anti-immigrant group is looking for ways to force WebTrans to cease operating.  One tactic being explored is a class-action lawsuit, on behalf of copyrighted commercial shopping and news Websites, claiming various theories of copyright infringement.

WebTrans has hired you as special copyright counsel to analyze the risks of litigation and suggest was what WebTrans might do to reduce its exposure to copyright litigation.  Write WebTrans a memo discussing the following:


Question 2
(Sixty Minutes)

A

Annie is an amateur poet.  After a difficult breakup with her old boyfriend, she writes a poem about the relationship and its ending (the “Poem”).  She sends an e-mail with the complete text of the Poem to a number of friends, including her new boyfriend Bill.

Unbeknownst to Annie, Bill is an amateur musician.  He keeps that fact secret because the members of his band all have important day jobs.  Bill sets the Poem to music, writes the music and words down, and makes a recording of the resulting song in a secret jamming session with his band (the “Song”).

As a surprise for Annie, Bill plays his recording of the Song for her on her next birthday.  Annie is delighted.  “How wonderful!” she exclaims.  “I’m so happy that you wrote the song; I can’t imagine a better setting for my poem.”

Carol, who is a member of Bill’s secret band, also loves the Poem and the Song.  She has a friend, David, who has professional video recording equipment and is a skilled film maker.   She asks David to record the band playing the Song on videotape but swears David to secrecy.  She tells David, “If we ever do anything commercial with the video, we’ll give you ten percent.”  David agrees.

At Carol’s request, David attends another jamming session of the band, which David videotapes.  The band is particularly inspired that day, and David’s resulting videotape recording of the Song based on the Poem is particularly pleasing (the “Tape”).

Carol likes the Tape of the Song so much that she decides to turn it into a music video.  She downloads various video clips from the Web, takes excerpts from them, and intersperses those video excerpts with scenes of the band playing from the Tape.  Underneath it all, the band plays on, as Bill sings the Song.  So the result is a music video (the “Video”) comprising the audio portion of the band’s second jamming session, with Bill singing the Song based the Poem, as recorded in the Tape, along with video material consisting of clips of the band playing, interspersed with interesting (and often irrelevant) scenes from clips that Carol took from the Web.

Carol now would like to exploit the Video commercially.  None of these actors knows anything about copyright, and no explicit copyright permissions or releases have been obtained.  Analyze who owns copyright in the Video, what type of copyrighted work it is, what Carol would have to do to obtain copyright “clearance” sufficient to exploit the Video commercially, and what the commercial consequences of her exploitation would be, for all the parties.  Do any other persons have possible interests in the Video?


B

Your client wants to use material from a book that is now out of print.  The only information that you have about the book is a single copy that your client supplied.  The title page of that copy says that the book was published in 1966.

You commission a search of Copyright Office records for the title and author.  The only thing that turns up is a record that copyright was registered in the year of publication.  What do you tell your client and why?  What would you tell your client, and why, if the year of publication was 1986 and all the other facts were the same?



Question 3
(Thirty Minutes)


Write an essay analyzing and/or criticizing this passage.  Be sure to address all aspects of it, including: (1) its underlying assumptions (including the law’s past, present, and likely future effect on Internet use); and (2) its implicit judgments as to what is good policy and what is practically doable.  If you agree that parts of the law require revision, specify briefly, as specifically as possible, what aspects of it require revision and why.  Your grade will depend not upon your point of view (or upon whether you agree with the passage), but upon how carefully and specifically you support and document your analysis, with reference to the statutes, cases and statutory and constitutional policies that we have studied and the underlying factual trends that they reveal.  The more specific and focused your analysis, the better your grade will be.

END OF EXAMINATION
INSTRUCTIONS FOR SUBMITTING YOUR ANSWERS APPEAR BELOW



INSTRUCTIONS FOR SUBMITTING YOUR ANSWERS

Please take all of the following steps in submitting your answers, before the deadline for submission:

1.  Include honor-code statement.  Make sure that your honor-code statement appears at the end of your answer file.  (Your examination number and e-mail header will constitute your signature under Ohio’s Uniform Electronic Transactions Act.)

2.  Include your examination ID number.  Type your examination ID number at the end of your answer file and double-check it.  To avoid accidental breach of anonymity, make sure that your answer file contains no other identifying information.

3.  Spell-check and finalize.  Spell-check your answer file and make any necessary changes.  Check the total number of words and modify as necessary.

4.  Save your answer file with the anonymous ID.  Save your answer file on your hard drive, with your honor-code statement and examination ID number at the end of the file.  When you save your file, use the file name “2007 Copyright Law Exam” and no other.  (If you use another file name, your anonymity may be compromised.)

5.  Save your file in a commonly used, compatible format.  Some word-processing formats have compatibility problems.  If you have experienced problems exchanging files with others in the past, please use a file format that you know is common and widely compatible.  If necessary, save your answer file in Rich Text Format.  (Use the “Save As” feature of your Word Processor; then click on the double arrow to the right of the “File Type” field in the “Save As” dialogue box and select “Rich Text Format (RTF)” or another widely compatible option.  Be sure to verify that this option appears in the “File Type” field before you click the “Save” button.  Then check to see that a file with correct name and a “.doc” or “.rtf” file extension appears in your file folder.  You may have to click on “View” : “Details” to see the file extension.)

6.  Attach your answer file to an e-mail message.  Send your answer file, in a compatible format, as an e-mail attachment to your message, not as part of the message itself.  The “Subject” line for your e-mail message should be “2007 Copyright Law Exam,” and the text of the message should read “Attached are my answers.”  Please double-check that your answers appear as an attached file, not embedded in your e-mail message.

(I will use your e-mail cover messages only to check that everyone has submitted answers.  I will not grade any exam until an assistant has “anonymized” the answers by separating the attached files from the e-mail messages and sending the attachments to me with no identifying information other than the examination ID number included in each file at the end.)

7.  Submit your answers by e-mail.  Send your cover message, with your answer file attached, to all of the following addresses:

(If you have not already prepared an address list in response to the test message, please cut and paste each address from this list into your e-mail program’s “address” or “TO” field to avoid typing errors; then double-check all addresses and punctuation.)

8.  Print and retain a paper copy of your answer file.  Immediately after sending your e-mail message, print out a copy of your answers and staple the pages together.  Then sign and date your answers and record the exact time of your printout on the title page.  (If there is an e-mail mixup, this paper copy will serve to demonstrate what you wrote and when, in accordance with the honor system.)
HAVE A GOOD WINTER BREAK!