Copyrighting Creativity

What is the relationship between creativity, cultural heritage institutions and copyright? Who owns culture and cultural heritage? The digital age has expanded the horizon of creative possibilities for artists and cultural institutions - what is the impact on legal regimes that were constructed for an analogue world? What are the tensions between the safeguarding of cultural heritage and the dissemination of knowledge about culture? Inspired by a three year research project involving leading European universities, this book explores the relationship between copyright and intellectual property, creativity and innovation, and cultural heritage institutions. Its contributors are scholars from both the humanities and the social sciences - from cultural studies to law - as well as cultural practitioners and representatives from cultural heritage institutions. They all share an interest in the contribution of intellectual property to the role of cultural institutions in making culture accessible and encouraging new creativity.

These collected chapters and interviews explore the current issues and debates about how copyright will or should adapt to meet the practices of 21st-century creators and internet users. The book begins with an overview of copyright law basics. It is organized by parts that correspond to creative genres: Literary Works, Visual Arts, Fine Art, Music, Video Games and Virtual Worlds, Fashion, and Technology. The chapters and interviews address issues such as copyright ownership in work created by Artificial Intelligence (AI), the musical remix market, whether appropriation is ever a fair use of a copyrighted work or if it is always theft, and whether internet- based platforms should do more to deter piracy of creators’ works. Each part ends with an essay explaining the significance of one or two landmark or trendsetting cases to help the reader understand the practical implications of the law. Written to be accessible to both lay and legal audiences, this unique collection addresses contemporary legal issues that all creators need to understand and will be essential reading for artists, designers, and musicians as well as the lawyers who represent them.

Inspired by Strunk & White's The Elements of Style, this elegant, short reference is the perfect guide for screenwriters and creative artists looking to succeed as industry professionals. Readers will quickly understand the laws that govern creativity, idea-making, and selling, and learn how to protect themselves and their works from the legal quagmires they may encounter. Written by an unrivaled pair of experts, John L. Geiger and Howard Suber, who use real-life case studies to cover topics such as clearance, contracts, collaboration, and infringement, Creativity and Copyright is poised to become an indispensable resource for beginners and experts alike.

The Supreme Court of the United States in Feist v. Rural (1991) required that databases must have a minimal degree of creativity for copyright. The judgment was highly significant and the subsequent period is understood as the post-Feist era. It has been globally influential. However, the decision is extremely complex and remains unsatisfactorily interpreted. In particular, it has been impossible to illuminate the creativity requirement. The book gives an account of the decision’s conceptual structure, focusing on its full delineation of the opposite to creativity. In a radical and unprecedented innovation, it is correlated with an automatic computational process. Creativity itself is understood as non-computational or directly human activity concerned with meaning. Determining the presence of creativity is reduced to a four-stage test. This work then has acute practical current relevance to property in data in the digital age; it will also be of theoretical interest to, and is aimed at, researchers in, practitioners, and students of intellectual property worldwide.

Copyright, Creativity, Big Media & Cultural Value: Incorporating the Author explains why copyright is much more than a creator's private property right or a mechanism through which corporations control cultural production and influence mass consumption choices.

Copyright law regulates creativity. It affects the way people create works of authorship ex-ante and affects the status of works of authorship significantly ex-post. But does copyright law really understand creativity? Should legal theories alone inform our regulation of the creative process? This book views copyright law as a law of creativity. It asks whether copyright law understands authorship as other creativity studies fields do. It considers whether copyright law should incorporate non-legal theories, and if so, how it should be adjusted in their light. For this purpose, the book focuses on one of the many rights that copyright law regulates – the right to make a derivative work. A work is considered derivative when it is based on one or more preexisting works. Today, the owner of a work of authorship has the exclusive right to make derivative works based on her original work or to allow others to do so. The book suggests a new way to think about both the right, the tension, and copyright law at large. It proposes relying on non-legal fields like cognitive psychology and genre theories, and offers new legal-theoretical justifications for the right to make derivative works. As the first book to consider the intersection between copyright law, creativity and derivative works, this will be a valuable resource for students, scholars, and practitioners interested in intellectual property and copyright law.

Creators and creative industries are struggling to navigate the digital age. Intellectual property rights, including copyrights, trademarks, and patents, offer invaluable tools to help creative industries remain viable and sustainable. But to be fully effective, they must be considered as part of a greater ecosystem. Cultivating Copyright offers a framework for tailoring flexible strategies and adaptive solutions suited to diverse creative industries. Tailored solutions entail change on four fronts: business models and strategies, legal policies and practices, technological measures, and cultural and normative features. Creating strong creative industries through tailored solutions serves critical functions: promoting richly varied artistic endeavors and supporting democratic flourishing.

Copyright law never sleeps, making it imperative to keep abreast of the latest developments. Declared “an exemplary text that seals the standards for such books” (Managing Information), this newly revised and updated edition by respected copyright authority Crews offers timely insights and succinct guidance for LIS students, librarians, and educators alike. Readers will learn basic copyright definitions and key exceptions for education and library services; find information quickly with “key points” sidebars, legislative citations, and cross-references; get up to speed on fresh developments, such as how the recently signed Marrakesh Treaty expands access for people with disabilities and why the latest ruling in the Georgia State University case makes developing a fair use policy so important; understand the concept of fair use, with fresh interpretations of its many gray areas that will aid decision making; learn the current state of affairs regarding mass digitization, Creative Commons, classroom use and distance education, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and other important topics; receive guidance on setting up on a copyright service at a library, college, or university; and find many helpful checklists for navigating copyright in various situations. This straightforward, easy-to-use guide provides the tools librarians and educators need to take control of their rights and responsibilities as copyright owners and users.