BC Law Library Archive
BC Law Library Archive

Category: Copyright

2025Blog PostCopyright

BLOG POST: Copyright Royalty Distribution Law Violations in the Streaming Era – A Solution to the Problem*

*This writing is a blog post. It is not a published IPTF Journal article. Melina Iavarone Music has never been more accessible.[1] Digital service providers (DSPs) like Spotify and Pandora allow consumers to stream songs digitally.[2] The shift to streaming has also transformed how artists get paid.[3] Despite massively lucrative streaming careers, major names like Taylor Swift have taken issue with how mechanical copyright royalties are distributed.[4] In 2014, Swift temporarily removed her discography from Spotify, believing that the streaming service should not undercut her profits by allowing users to access her music for free.[5] Specifically, she objected to Spotify’s...
Read More
2025Copyright

The Art of Economic Restraint: Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith

Kristine C. Braddock Copyright aims to incentivize the creation of original art, but it does so at the cost of public access. As technology has evolved over the past two hundred years, Congress has persistently extended the copyright term, theoretically providing more incentive and less public access. But this trend toward perpetual protection strains the “limited Times” constraint of the Copyright Clause, whose entire purpose is to maximize creative output. This Article examines the implications of an extended copyright term, focusing on its impact on artistic innovation, particularly in light of Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v....
Read More
2024Copyright

The Heart of Artificial Intelligence in the Music Industry: Amending the Music Modernization Act to Promote Transparency

Emily Rockwell In recent months, the music industry has continually called for comprehensive legislation or executive action to regulate the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in music production. Even so, the United States government has yet to propose regulations or executive measures to oversee the social and economic impacts of AI on consumer-driven industries such as music. In contrast, the European Parliament has recently developed a comprehensive plan to regulate the rapid expansion of AI technology. This Article explores the numerous impacts of emerging AI technology upon music production and examines how current legislation such as the Music Modernization Act...
Read More
2024Copyright

Copyright Thickness, Thinness, and a Mannion Test for Images Produced by Generative Artificial Intelligence Applications

Molly Torsen Stech Human authorship has always been, and continues to be, a foundational requirement for copyright protection to subsist in a work. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) challenges this prerequisite but does not overcome it. The output of generative AI is not discernibly different from the output of a human author and therefore benefits from a false sheen of originality. While some argue that prompt engineering fulfills the requirements of originality––the threshold for which is quite low across jurisdictions––prompting still lacks the requisite link between human creativity and the resulting work to receive copyright protections. International copyright treaties and domestic...
Read More
2024Copyright

BLOG POST: Looking Through the Lens: Can Photography’s Past Support the Copyrightability of AI Art?

Emily Luu *This writing is a blog post. It is not a published IPTF Journal article. The public release of text-to-image models, such as Midjourney and DALL-E, has allowed users to easily create AI-generated images using only a few words.[1] Text-to-image models take user-generated prompts and, within seconds,  produce an image matching that description.[2] Although text-to-image programs are a new type of visualization tool that significantly increase accessibility to artistic works for artists and non-artists alike, they have also drawn criticism from traditional artists who view this innovation only as a tool used for perpetuating uncreativity and “copycat” works.[3]As of...
Read More
2023CopyrightTechnology Law

Keeping the Good Faith: YouTube, Fair Use, and the DMCA

Alexandra M. Even YouTube is an important platform for user-generated content and serves as a positive space for creativity on the internet. Nevertheless, there are some glaring problems with the way YouTube handles copyright infringement. Congress enacted the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) before the internet had taken shape into the vast and complex body we know today. Copyright holders are given far more leniency than the creators accused of infringement, largely due to a subjective good faith standard imposed by the courts. This article proposes the good faith standard in § 512(c) of the DMCA be amended to incorporate...
Read More
2023CopyrightTechnology Law

The Secret Life of Platform Intellectual Property Adjudication

Shih-wei Chao An emerging trend in intellectual property law is e-commerce platforms adjudicating infringement disputes. When platforms receive right holder complaints and decide whether to remove product listings, suspend the seller, or destroy the infringing inventory—intentional or not—they are acting as “courts,” applying unique “laws” and granting platform-style “remedies.” To provide a peek into this nascent realm of intellectual property alternative dispute resolution, this article first compiles what is known about platforms’ adjudication mechanisms, from complaint to decision, from enforcement to “appeals,” covering both platforms’ basic complaint systems and Amazon’s UPNEP/APEX program. Normatively, however, there are concerns that platforms are...
Read More
2022Copyright

Choreographic Works in the Age of Social Media: The Issues and Implications of Copyrighting TikTok Dances

Patricia Garza Gonzalez Keara Wilson, the creator of the “Savage” dance on TikTok successfully registered her dance as a choreographic work with the U.S. Copyright Office, making it the first viral TikTok dance protected under the Copyright Act of 1976. She is one of numerous TikTok dance creators seeking copyright protection for their works as the social media platform has bolstered dance dissemination through dance challenges that encourage users to reproduce and post their versions of short routines. Nevertheless, under the current guidelines for choreographic work copyright, TikTok dances are not entitled to copyright protections because of their categorization as...
Read More
2022Copyright

Digital Art Says: Protect Our “Groove” Too

Annie Kim Digital technology has become one of the most common methods artists use to create art. This advancement in technology causes many copyright difficulties, especially related to artists’ styles. Standardized and common features of digital software have made it far too easy for people to duplicate other people’s work, and more significantly, an artist’s unique style. Current copyright laws are insufficient to address these issues, and there is almost no legal precedent related to protecting an artist’s “art style.” In a groundbreaking case, Williams v. Gaye, the court implemented a two-part test to imply protection for musical styles, the...
Read More
2022CopyrightTrademark

From Canvas to Designer Cloth: The Exploitative Nature of the Fair Use Doctrine in the Arts

Victoria Schmidt This Essay examines the controversial launch of the 2020 COACH® x Basquiat Collection featuring the signature image of Jean- Michel Basquiat on Coach purses and clothing. These signature images were part of a larger work of art by Basquiat that aimed to critique racial segregation, police brutality, and the capitalistic pull of American society. Basquiat supporters critique the collaboration as a misappropriation of the artist’s message. Under this assumption, this Essay evaluates the scope of the fair use doctrine through a hypothetical copyright infringement claim against Coach. This Essay examines the provisions of current copyright laws and advocates...
Read More