Talk by EFF’s Fred Von Lohmann November 17
by Laura DeNardis | November 16, 2009 | ISP speaker series, announcements, events | Comments Off
The November 17 ISP Speaker Series will feature Fred Von Lohmann, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s senior staff attorney specializing in intellectual property matters. The name of his talk is “Owners of Copies v. Copyright Owners: Understanding Copyright’s Exhaustion Doctrine.”
The Ninth Circuit is poised to rule on three appeals that bring up the same issue: can copyright owners use contracts of adhesion to trump exceptions written into the Copyright Act for the public’s benefit? When you buy a CD, book, or DVD, the Copyright Act lets you resell that copy without having to worry about infringing the exclusive right of distribution. 
Can a label or “license” change that? And when you buy software, you can use and adapt it, without having to worry about infringing the exclusive right of reproduction. Can that be changed by “license”?
At the border between copyright law and personal property law, we’ll discuss what’s at stake for the public interest, the personal property rights of copy owners, and the contractual powers of copyright owners.
The event will take place at 4:10 p.m. in Room 121 of Yale Law School. Refreshments will be provided.
