This volume contains transcripts of the hearings held by the Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property regarding copyright term, film labeling, and film preservation legislation. It provides valuable insight into the debates and discussions surrounding these important issues in the early 1990s. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

A very helpful and accessible collection of contemporary issues in digital copyright law. . . Rimmer s book is quite possibly the most enjoyable and easy to read guide to selected issues of digital copyright law on the market today. . . Its core strength is undoubtedly its accessibility it is a pleasure to read. Martin Arthur Kuppers, Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice Matthew Rimmer s book provides much needed insight into the current status of digital copyright and its relationship to the general purchasing public. . . This book, which has a structure that flows with concinnity and concision, makes it easy to navigate some of the most complicated and controversial issues. Lisa Wong, Osgoode Hall Law Journal This engaging account of US copyright law (and copyright wars) is thorough and informative. Following a comprehensive and compelling introduction, encompassing a literature review and outline of the methodology and arguments to be adopted. . . His deep understanding of the subject matter, as well as his profound empathy with consumers, are evident throughout the work; the book will, no doubt, foster a similar interest in another generation of copyright law scholars. Louise Buckingham, Copyright Reporter Digital Copyright and the Consumer Revolution is a very important and timely book. . . and is a crucial vade mecum on the ever evolving global maze of case law and copyright reform . Colin Steele, Australian Library Journal It will most definitely prove to be an indispensable tool for researchers concerned with recent legal developments in the copyright field, both in America and Australia. Rimmer s Hands Off My iPod is a comprehensive and detailed analysis of current problems facing copyright holders as the struggle (and often fumble) to find a balance between profiting off their property and keeping the newly-powerful, increasingly agile user happy. Adam Sulewski, Journal of High Technology Law Rimmer brings the tension between law and technology to life in this important and accessible work. Digital Copyright and the Consumer Revolution helps make sense of the global maze of caselaw and copyright reform that extend from San Francisco to Sydney. The book provides a terrific guide to the world s thorniest digital legal issues as Rimmer demonstrates how the consumer interest is frequently lost in the crossfire. Michael A. Geist, the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-Commerce Law, the University of Ottawa, Canada This book documents and evaluates the growing consumer revolution against digital copyright law, and makes a unique theoretical contribution to the debate surrounding this issue. With a focus on recent US copyright law, the book charts the consumer rebellion against the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act 1998 (US) and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998 (US). The author explores the significance of key judicial rulings and considers legal controversies over new technologies, such as the iPod, TiVo, Sony Playstation II, Google Book Search, and peer-to-peer networks. The book also highlights cultural developments, such as the emergence of digital sampling and mash-ups, the construction of the BBC Creative Archive, and the evolution of the Creative Commons. Digital Copyright and the Consumer Revolution will be of prime interest to academics, law students and lawyers interested in the ramifications of copyright law, as well as policymakers given its focus upon recent legislative developments and reform proposals. The book will also appeal to librarians, information managers, creative artists, consumers, technology developers, and other users of copyright material.

Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life is one of the best-loved films of Classical Hollywood cinema, a story of despair and redemption in the aftermath of war that is one of the central movies of the 1940s, and a key text in America's understanding of itself. This is a film that remains relevant to our own anxieties and yearnings, to all the contradictions of ordinary life, while also enacting for us the quintessence of the classic Hollywood aesthetic. Nostalgia, humour, and a tough resilience weave themselves through this movie, intertwining it with the fraught cultural moment of the end of World War II that saw its birth. It offers a still compelling merging of fantasy and realism that was utterly unique when it was first released, and has rarely been matched since. Michael Newton's study of the film investigates the source of its extraordinary power and its long-lasting impact. He begins by introducing the key figures in the movie's production - notably director Frank Capra and star James Stewart - and traces the making of the film, and then provides a brief synopsis of the film, considering its aesthetic processes and procedures, touching on all those things that make it such an astonishing film. Newton's careful analysis explores all those aspects of the film that are fundamental to our understanding of it, particularly the way in which the film brings tragedy and comedy together. Finally, Newton tells the story of the film's reception and afterlife, accounting for its initial relative failure and its subsequent immense popularity.

Written on the occasion of copyright's 300th anniversary, John Tehranian's Infringement Nation presents an engaging and accessible analysis of the history and evolution of copyright law and its profound impact on the lives of ordinary individuals in the twenty-first century. Organized around the trope of the individual in five different copyright-related contexts - as an infringer, transformer, pure user, creator and reformer - the book charts the changing contours of our copyright regime and assesses its vitality in the digital age. In the process, Tehranian questions some of our most basic assumptions about copyright law by highlighting the unseemly amount of infringement liability an average person rings up in a single day, the counterintuitive role of the fair use doctrine in radically expanding the copyright monopoly, the important expressive interests at play in even the unauthorized use of copyright works, the surprisingly low level of protection that American copyright law grants many creators, and the broader political import of copyright law on the exertion of social regulation and control. Drawing upon both theory and the author's own experiences representing clients in various high-profile copyright infringement suits, Tehranian supports his arguments with a rich array of diverse examples crossing various subject matters - from the unusual origins of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," the question of numeracy among Amazonian hunter-gatherers, the history of stand-offs at papal nunciatures, and the tradition of judicial plagiarism to contemplations on Slash's criminal record, Barbie's retroussé nose, the poisonous tomato, flag burning, music as a form of torture, the smell of rotting film, William Shakespeare as a man of the people, Charles Dickens as a lobbyist, Ashley Wilkes's sexual orientation, Captain Kirk's reincarnation, and Holden Caulfield's maturation. In the end, Infringement Nation makes a sophisticated yet lucid case for reform of existing doctrine and the development of a copyright 2.0.