US LAW U.S. copyright law allows a successful plaintiff in a copyright case to obtain an award of

While victorious, the plaintiff’s believed that the district court had erred in their decision not to award punitive damages. The defendants, on the other hand, argued that the court had erred in denying their motion for summary judgment.

When The Copyright Act of 1976 was enacted works created after January 1, 1978, are automatically given statutory copyright protection for life of the author plus 70 years. (Miller R. J., 2011, pp. 125-126) For someone to go against the rules of a copyright this is called a copyright infringement. A copyright infringement occurs if a substantial part of a copyrighted product has been reproduced. (Miller R. J., 2011, p. 127) Damages can vary from case to case of copyright infringement. Based on the type of damage caused it will be classified as actual damages or statutory damages. Actual damages are based on the harm caused by the copyright holder by the infringement. (Miller R. J., 2011, p. 127) Statutory damages may not exceed $150,000. Criminal proceedings may result in fines and/or imprisonment. There is a notable way to waive the copyright by

The duration of copyright determines the length of protection. Limitations on this length exist to ensure works enter the public domain. Therefore, the length of protection is one of the most relevant and debated issues regarding copyright law. The proponents and opponents of copyright term extension make compelling arguments, but both sides agree that copyright law should encourage creativity and innovation. If Disney is successful in once again lobbying for an extension of duration, a substantial number of works will fail to enter the public domain in a timely manner. This will, consequently, lead to a stifling of creativity and a suppression of innovation that could be detrimental to progress in the realms of science and the useful arts.

Tort reform is very controversial issue. From the plaintiff’s perspective, tort reforms seems to take liability away from places such as insurance companies and hospitals which could at times leave the plaintiff without defense. From the defendant’s perspective, tort reform provides a defense from extremely large punitive damage awards. There seems to be no median between the two. Neither side will be satisfied. With the help of affiliations such as the American Tort Reform Association and Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse, many businesses and corporations are working to change the current tort system to stop these high cash awards.

How did the change toward a more punitive model affect sentencing practices then and now?

To what degree are two photos similar enough to have both parties get involved in court? This question is asked frequently in the copyright law world, and is the subject of a case involving Esquire magazine’s cover of famous contemporary boxer Sonny Liston in 1963 and if the 1998 cover of Sports Illustrated with the then-popular boxer Evander Holyfield infringed on Time Inc.’s copyright. At face value the image can be copyrighted, but when dissecting the individual elements of the image apart, what remains is a weak argument to justify copyright protection.

Plainly said, Tort Reform is caps on damages. Tort reform is not just one single idea or law, but mostly it's a group of ideas and laws which are designed to change the way our civil justice system works. After careful examination of several sites and blogs, it is obvious that Tort Reform is extremely controversial. Several articles aimed at providing a neutral explanation of what individual tort reform measures are, and the effect they will have on the court system and on citizens, if we are not careful when we vote for these types of policy changes. (Admin,

In its beginning, the United States based its code of laws on the British Law (Moser & Slay, 2011, 16). Connecticut passed the first state copyright bill: an Act for the Encouragement of Literature and Genius in 1783 (Moser & Slay, 2011, 16). By 1786, twelve out of the thirteen states had passed copyright statutes. However, the fact that each state had its own copyright laws created inconsistency and inconvenience for enforcement from one state to another. A federal copyright law was necessary. On March 1783, the Continental Congress drafted the Constitutional Copyright Clause, which gave to the federal government the power to pass copyright laws (Moser & Slay, 2011, 17). The clause stipulated that the goal of the United States was to promote

Copyright is the legal right, to an inventor to perform, print, publish, film, or record artistic, literary, or musical material, and to allow others to do the same. Copyright law was developed to provide the creators and inventors of any works with powerful and effective rights of exclusivity over their creations (Patterson & Lindberg, 1991). Over the past, these rights were almost unlimited. People would use existing developments as if they were their own without any regard of the creator’s exclusive rights. The need to balance and limit such rights arose, and governments established these limits for the general good of the public.

The different between aggravate damage and exemplary damage has been described in the leading case ‘NSW v Ibbett’ . It could be said that while an award of aggravated damages given by way of compensation for injury which may be intangible to the plaintiff, exemplary damage award serve a valuable purpose in restraining the misconduct which is arbitrary and outrageous of those acting under the power of the Executive Government. In other words, aggravated damages are award for misconduct that shocks the plaintiff and exemplary damages are awarded for conduct that shocks the Court. In such circumstance, where the authorities act in gross breach of discipline and commit unlawful act which is oppressive, exemplary had been awarded. The High Court

Due to how abusable current copyright laws are, they must be reformed to prevent copyright trolling. According to Matthew Sag, “The essence of trolling is that the plaintiff is more focused on the business of litigation than on selling a product or service or licensing their IP to third parties to sell a product or a service” (“Copyright Trolling, An Empirical Study” page 4). Copyright trolls seek to acquire their income from suing others on copyright violations, rather than continually creating new works and using copyright to protect them. Copyright, whether one agrees with the concept or not, was not designed for this purpose. People should not be allowed to make a business off of suing others. This is not only unjust, but wastes the court’s time with actual crimes. The United States must reform its current laws to prevent this type of behavior from happening. According to Parker Higgins, “Like email spammers, copyright trolls depend on the ability to cheaply cast a very wide net, sending out hundreds or thousands of accusations at once and getting settlement payments back from some percentage” (“Copyright trolls suffer big loss” par. 3). Many trolls do not target specific groups or people; rather, they spread it in such a way that any company or organization can accidentally “misuse” it. This creates an environment in which it is impossible for many groups to tell if they can use another party’s content without invoking a ludicrous copyright lawsuit. This is not a

The amendment contain a number of important changes to copyright law The Kazaa case had enforced the Copyright Amendment Act, which introduced a new range of copyright offences including indictable, summary and strict liability. Depending on the seriousness of the situation. The more serious offences are the indictable offences, if a person knowingly participates in infringing conduct such as intentionally selling infringing copies of material. Penalties include fines of up to $60,500 per offence for individuals and for corporations five times more or imprisonment for up to 5

Over the past few years there have been numerous cases of piracy and fraud arising with music distribution. The most eye opening case was a Boston University graduate student who pleaded guilty to downloading and sharing music online. Joel Tenenbaum admitted in court that he downloaded and distributed 30 songs (United States). The only issue for the jury was to decide how much reimbursement to award the record labels. According to the law, record labels are permitted to around $750 to $30,000 for each violation. However, the law allows up to $150,000 per track shared if the jury finds out the violations were deliberate with clear intentions (Bacache-Beauvallet). The maximum amount awarded in Tenenbaum's case fell around $4.5 million. At one

First let’s look at what Copyright laws protect and the penalties of infringing upon Copyrighted work. Copyright is a form of protection granted by the government which protects original works of authorship, such as books, song, movies, computer software, and more, from being stolen. However facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, cannot be Copyrighted. Having a Copyright lets you reproduce your work, make related works, make copies, and perform or display the work publicly. The penalties of infringing upon a Copyrighted work are, the infringer may be taken to court, be forced to pay the damages or lost profits the copyright infringing work cost the creator or the profits the infringer made off of the stolen work. They could also be forced to pay all attorney fees and court costs, have the illegal work impounded, and may be jailed. However, most of the time the Copyright

At the end it costs both the plaintiff and the accuser a lot of time and money. In the worst scenarios, the financial burden can end the existence of a company. Additionally, many current businesses are losing millions of profits due to pirating and copyright infringements. This is lost revenue that may be applicable to further strengthen the economy.