Kernochan Center Symposia
Constitutional Challenges to Copyright
On Friday, October 27, 2006, Columbia Law School hosted a day-long symposium on Constitutional Challenges to Copyright.
The past several years have seen an increasing number of challenges to copyright and related laws on constitutional grounds. The 1976 Copyright Act, the Copyright Term Extension Act, the Berne Convention Implementation Act, the Copyright Renewal Act of 1992, the Copyright Restoration Provisions of the URAA, the federal anti-bootlegging statutes, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act have all been subject to challenge, and one federal district court has held the federal anti-bootlegging statute unconstitutional, while another has reached the opposite conclusion.
Our symposium explored the sources and limitations of Congress's power to enact copyright and copyright-related laws, the merits of these constitutional challenges, and the courts' responses so far. Panelists discussed and debated on:
- Congress's power to enact copyright laws, and limitations on that power inherent in the Copyright Clause
- Alternatives to the Copyright Power: The relationship of the Copyright Clause to the Commerce Clause and the Treaty Power
- Copyright and Freedom of Expression
Keynote Speaker:
Marybeth Peters
U.S. Register of Copyrights
Featuring
Prof. Graeme Austin
University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law
Prof. Paul Bender
Arizona State University, Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law
Prof. Graeme Dinwoodie
Chicago-Kent College of Law
Prof. Robert Kasunic
American University, Washington College of Law
(Visiting, 2006-07)
Prof. Joseph Liu
Boston College School of Law
Prof. Thomas Nachbar
University of Virginia School of Law
Prof. Dotan Oliar
University of Virginia School of Law
Prof. R. Anthony Reese
University of Texas at Austin School of Law
New York University School of Law (Visiting, 2006-07)
Prof. Chris Sprigman
University of Virginia School of Law
Prof. Rebecca Tushnet
Georgetown University Law Center
Moderators:
Prof. Jane Ginsburg
Columbia Law School
Prof. Clarisa Long
Columbia Law School
Prof. Tim Wu
Columbia Law School
June Besek, Esq.
Executive Director, Kernochan Center
for Law, Media and the Arts
Columbia Law School
Sponsors:
The Kernochan Center gratefully acknowledges the generous sponsorship of:
The Columbia Journal of Law and the Arts
The Horace Manges Lecture and Conference Fund
SIIA, the Software and Information Industry Association (http://siia.net
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