Fair Use in Practice (LAW-795FP-001)
Jaszi
Meets: 02:00 PM - 05:00 PM (MTWTH) - Capital - Room C116
Enrolled: 12 / Limit: 30
Notices
6/6/16-6/9/16
Description
The last 20 years have seen enormous changes in copyright far use; thanks to the federal courts, what was formally an intellectually interesting doctrine of limited practical significance has become a central issue in many copyright disputes, including controversies about new media uses of existing works. In other words, a working knowledge of fair use is now an important part of every intellectual property lawyer’s tool kit. The objective of this one-credit course is to introduce students to fair use doctrine as it is understood by courts and employed by practitioners today, and to provide them with opportunities to test their knowledge in realistic simulation activities.
The class consists of four 3-hour class sessions and a 3-hour online examination. Class coverage will be as follows
1. The development of the fair use doctrine, from the earliest times to 1994.
2. The doctrine after Acuff-Rose v. Campbell.
3. Fair use applied to film-making and the visual arts: A series of role-playing exercises in which students will generate arguments and analyses around hypothetical problems based on real-world cases.
4. Fair use applied to innovation in digital technology: More role-playing exercises.
The final exam will consist of a “file” documenting a problem for which students will be asked to generate a fair use analysis.
Questions: E-mail pjaszi@wcl.american.edu or call 202-274-4216.
Textbooks and Other Materials
The textbook information on this page was provided by the instructor. Students should use this information when considering purchases from the AU Campus Store or other vendors. Students may check to determine if books are currently available for purchase online.
Readings for the class will consist primarily of a number of high-profile Supreme Court and Court of Appeals decisions. A syllabus with links or references to the reading assignments will be available by May 15, at the latest. The course is open to all students, but those who have no copyright background should be prepared to do a little extra work on basic concepts and terms in the field.
First Class Readings
Not available at this time.
Syllabus
Use your MyAU username and password to access the syllabus in the following format(s):
Microsoft Word 2007 (DOCX)