COPYRIGHT THEORY SEMINAR SYLLABUS
Professor Pamela Samuelson
University of California, Berkeley
Fall 1998 ~ Boalt Hall
Offices: 341 North Addition and 305B South Hall
Telephone: 642-6775 (same for both offices)
Email: pam@sims.berkeley.edu
(accessible from both offices)
Office hours: 4-6pm Mondays and by appointment
Course Home Page: http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~pam/courses/copyright-theory/
There are three texts for this course: Richard H. Chused,
A Copyright Anthology: The Technology Frontier (1998); Mark Rose,
Authors and Owners: The Invention of Copyright (1993); and a
photocopied supplement of articles. Articles from the supplement are
identified by an (S) next to the name of the author (sans parentheses).
Readings from each of these sources, along with the date and subject
of our discussions, are indicated below:
Part I: Infusion Of Perspectives From Other Fields Into Copyright
8/17 Authorship as a construct; impact of the Chused 2-40
romantic conception of authorship (Litman & Jaszi)
8/24 Economic and philosophical perspectives Chused 453-73
on copyright (Sterk, Netanel)
8/31 More on economic and philosophical Chused 41-56
perspectives on copyright (Gordon)
Lunney 483-92,
627-56 (S)
9/8ish Artistic perspectives on copyright Chused 359-78,
169-76
(Harmon, Gordon)
Part II: The Politics of Copyright: An Historical Perspective
9/21 Public choice theory and the legislative Chused 59-80
politics of copyright (Litman)
Boyle (S)
9/28 Copyright as a publishers' right before the Rose 9-48
Statute of Anne
10/5 Transformation of copyright in the aftermath Rose 67-112
of the Statute of Anne
10/12 Constitutional dimensions of copyright: Hamilton (S)
what were the founders trying to achieve? 1-59
Part III: Challenges to Copyright In the Information Age
11/2 Sui generis regimes and related challenges Reichman (S)
to the traditional copyright paradigm in an 2434-53, 2476-
age of information-rich technologies 2504
11/9 Challenges to traditional copyright Chused 406-32
arising from the TRIPS Agreement (Nimmer, McManis)
(end of copyright?-part 1) Hamilton (S)
11/16 Copyright and developing countries: Reichman (S),
what's in it for them? Alford (S)
11/23 Digerati-libertarian threat to copyright Barlow (S), Chused,
(end of copyright?-part 2) 226-38 (Litman)
11/30 Copyright subsumed by contract and Cohen 1-21, 62-84,
technology (end of copyright?-part 3) 90-106, 116-21 (S)
12/7 Postmodern attacks on copyright Coombs (S)