Course | Columbia Law School

This seminar focuses on the role of authors, artists and performers in the creative process and examines ways in which their treatment under intellectual property and related laws fosters, and sometimes inhibits, the development of new and creative literary and artistic works. Views of copyright law today are polarized, but debates and controversies have largely involved big business and user groups — specific attention to the concerns of individual authors, artists, and performers has been largely absent. This seminar will focus on the role of individual authors and artists across different fields of endeavor. We will consider (1) how law and industry practices (including the form of remuneration, authorship credit, and control over subsequent uses of works) affect individual creative endeavors, and (2) whether the law has achieved the proper balance between protecting authors' work and making that work available to form the basis of new creative authorship by others. Topics include copyright, moral rights, performers' rights, authorship and ownership in various copyright sectors, issues of disparate bargaining power, the role of trade groups and other representatives, derivative works and "appropriation art," the public domain, and the role of the internet and new technologies.