Mba 560 Legal Worksheet

Legal Concepts Worksheet

Concept Application of Concept to the Issue of Downloading Reference to Concept in Reading

Copyright Law

The Copyright Act of 1976 "went into effect on January 1, 1978" (Radcliffe & Brinson, 1999).

This copyright law protects "work of authorship" (Radcliffe & Brinson, 1999). As defined by the copyright law, these works of authorship include literary works, musical works, motion pictures and other audiovisual works, sound recordings, and much more (Radcliffe & Brinson, 1999).

What are the procedures for getting copyright protection? "Copyright protection arises automatically when an original work of authorship is fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Registration with the Copyright Office is optional" (Radcliffe & Brinson, 1999). In order to file an infringement suit, you must be registered with the Copyright Office (Radcliffe & Brinson, 1999).

The Copyright Act of 1976 protects against the illegal distribution of music and videos.

To ensure copyright protection, you must meeting three criteria:

* "A work must be original. It must be created, not copied" (Reed et al., 2005).

* "The work must be fixed in a tangible medium of expression like a book, canvas, compact disc, tape, or computer disk" (Reed et al., 2005)

* "The work must show some creativity. (Reed et al., 2005)

Copyright in the cyber age

Due to "the growing popularity of downloading music online in 2001, the legal battle to protect copyright was focused on the efforts of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to challenge large

file-sharing networks like Napster. Though the RIAA won its case against Napster and effectively forced the site to shut down in 2001, a myriad of decentralized file-sharing

services emerged and millions of Internet users simply migrated to the new systems" (Madden & Lenhart, 2003).

"Criminal prosecutions and civil lawsuits for 'file sharing' copyrighted material over the Internet are growing" (Reed et al., 2005). "Note that the users of file-sharing programs who send or download copy-righted songs and videos are violating copyright law" (Reed et al., 2005).

Copyright Protection

No Electronic Theft (NET) Act of 1997 was signed by President Clinton on December 16, 1997 (The UCLA Online Institute for Cyberspace Law and Policy, 2007). This law was written to provide "copyright enforcement, especially against kids" (WiredSafety, 2007). This Act "added three important provisions to the Copyright Act: First 'financial gain' was redefined to include the receipt of anything of value, including the receipt of other copyrighted works" (WiredSafety, 2007). The second provision under NET is that it "criminalizes the willful reproduction or distribution (during a 180-day period), through electronic or other means, one or more copies of a copyrighted work with an aggregate retail value of more than $1,000" (WiredSafety, 2007). This could simply happen with the distribution of software to a couple of friends online. The final provision under NET is the "extended the statute of limitations on criminal copyright infringement from three to five years and increases the penalties and fines for criminal copyright infringement" (WiredSafety, 2007).

"An author creates works of a literary, dramatic, musical, graphic, choreographic, audio, or visual nature.

Ranging from printed material to photographs to records and motion pictures, these works receive automatic federal protection under the Copyright Act of 1976 from the moment the author creates them. The copyright allows the holder to control the reproduction, display, distribution, and performance of a protected work" (Reed et al., 2005).

Digital Millennium Copyright Act

"In January 2003, the RIAA won a landmark case against Verizon, forcing the company, under the provisions of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, to release the names of subscribers who were suspected of copyright infringement" (Madden & Lenhart, 2003). Verizon cited "customer privacy concerns" and appealed the decision due to "the lack of court oversight required for the subpoena process" (Madden & Lenhart, 2003). This ruling "was ultimately upheld and paved the way for the recording industry and other copyright holders to begin suing individuals believed to be infringing on copyright protections" (Madden & Lenhart, 2003).

"The act will be used to prevent the production, marketing, or sales of a product or service designed to get around technological protections of computer