"Economic and Constitutional Influences on Copyright Law in the United States" [2006] ELECD 262; in Hansen, Hugh (ed), "US Intellectual Property Law and Policy" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: US Intellectual Property Law and Policy

Editor(s): Hansen, Hugh

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845428662

Section: Chapter 6

Section Title: Economic and Constitutional Influences on Copyright Law in the United States

Number of pages: 41

Extract:

Chapter 6

Economic and Constitutional Influences on
Copyright Law in the United States
Pamela Samuelson*


1 . I N T RO D U C T I O N

In the aftermath of the accession of the United States to the Berne Convention
for Artistic and Literary Works,1 European copyright professionals have had the
pleasure of watching the law of this once renegade nation move toward greater
conformity with the longstanding norms of authors' rights jurisdictions.2 One
example is the ruling of the United States Supreme Court in Feist Publications,

* Chancellor's Professor of Law and Information Management, University of
California at Berkeley. The author wishes to thank Jason Schultz and Leah Theriault
for their research work on this article. Research support for this article was provided
by NSF Grant No. SES 9979852. This essay (sans postscript) was first published 23
Eur. Intell. Prop. Rev. 409 (Sept. 2001).
1 See Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, 9 September

1886, as last revised at Paris, 24 July 1971, and amended in 1979, 828 U.N.T.S. 221
[hereinafter Berne Convention]; the U.S. acceded to the Paris revision of the Berne
Convention on March 1, 1989.
2
See Berne Implementation Act, Pub.L. No. 100-568, 102 Stat. 2853 (1988); Visual
Artists Rights Act of 1990, Pub.L. No. 101-650, tit. VI, 104 Stat. 5128 (codified as 17
U.S.C. § 106A (Supp. II 1990)) [hereinafter VARA]; Architectural Works Copyright
Protection Act, Pub.L. No. ...