Copyright

Contributions

In copy­right law, an artist does not sign away the copy­right to an art­work sim­ply by allow­ing the art­work to appear in an art gallery. How­ev­er, where par­ties agree in writ­ing that a work is a “work made for hire” and where a work is a “con­tri­bu­tion to a col­lec­tive work,” the com­mis­sion­ing party—and not the artist—is the copy­right own­er. In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Michael Glad­stone (’22) argues that in at least one case, an art gal­lerist could own the copy­right in an artist’s work: where the work was specif­i­cal­ly com­mis­sioned for use in a per­ma­nent art installation.

Contributions

This Con­tri­bu­tion exam­ines whether an artist can claim copy­right pro­tec­tion over art they cre­at­ed with the assis­tance of an arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence pro­gram. Nao­mi Per­la (’21) argues that such works sat­is­fy the “orig­i­nal work of author­ship” require­ment pur­suant to 17 U.S.C. § 102(a), there­by grant­i­ng copy­right pro­tec­tion to the artist. The require­ments of both author­ship and orig­i­nal­i­ty are sat­is­fied due to the artist’s cre­ative choic­es that are large­ly reflect­ed in the fin­ished pieces. More­over, the Copy­right Act is meant to expand to include new works of art so that artists are con­sis­tent­ly incen­tivized to cre­ate for the ben­e­fit of the public.

Contributions

Should musi­cians be free to use sam­ples from the work of oth­ers in their songs with­out hav­ing to pay for them, or should sam­pled artists have a right to get paid for their work? In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Lee Nis­son (’18) unpacks the copy­right issues around dig­i­tal sam­pling of music, explor­ing the doc­trine of de min­imis use. Despite the artis­tic mer­its of sam­pling in music, the Con­tri­bu­tion argues that all sam­pling con­sti­tutes copy­right infringement.