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Stacey Stanfield
Dr. Bowles
ENGL 4304
November 24, 2015
The Future of Copyright Law
The U.S. Copyright act was written to protect the original works from being stolen and
reproduced unfairly. It was originally created to cover writings, but now the Copyright Act
includes architectural designs, choreographies, software, graphic arts, motion pictures, and sound
recordings. The owners of copyrighted acts have the right to reproduce, distribute, perform,
display, and license their own works. However, when the Copyright Act was written, it could not
have predicted the future of technology. The US Copyright Act has had much difficulty keeping
up with these rapid changes in technology. In his article, Technology and Uncertainty: The
Shaping Effect on Copyright Law, Ben Depoorter states And so, time after time, technological
advancements have affected copyright law by demanding answers to difficult questions
regarding the scope of the law (1839). Technologies such as JSTOR, Google Books, digital
archives, Twitter, and the illegal streaming of music and movies (just to name a few) all cause
large debates within the U.S. Copyright Act. Depoorter lays out many important questions when
he states,
with each new technological breakthrough, we are confronted with difficult questions
about the relationship between the new technology and copyright law. For example, does
the Internet present a challenge to copyright enforcement that is mostly related to the
scale of infringements, or does it present a qualitative change that necessitates shifting the
paradigm of copyright law? Is it simply that innovation leads the way and copyright
follows? If so, can we understand the future of copyright law by looking ahead and
anticipating changes in technology? Has technology created a paradigm shift in copyright

law, and do current events simply exemplify the notion that laws are slow at adapting to
evolving social norms? (1836).
Like Depoorter states, many problems have begun to arise as copyright law attempts to
keep up with these technologies. The copyright law struggles to keep up with these changing
technologies, and it is only a matter of time until this law no longer has the strength to be in
power over these new developments.
The first ever copyright law was the 1710 Statute of Anne created by Englands
Parliament. This law was mainly created to protect English booksellers and printers from having
their works copied. In 1790, Congress enacted its first copyright law which was modeled after
the English Statute of Anne. It gave the original authors the right to print, re-print, and publish
their works. In 1976 the Copyright Act was revised. This was the largest revision, and it was
revised because technological developments and their impact on what might be copyrighted,
how works might be copied, and what constituted an infringement needed to be addressed
(ARL). This is the most recent change of copyright law, and is the one that is in full effect today.
How does technology now come into play in regards to the copyright law? Depoorter
argues that because innovation is rapid and unpredictable, the adaptation of copyright law lags
far behind the introduction of new technological advancements (1840), and he inserts this table
to show the lag of the law in response to the changing technology.

For example, the VCR was introduced in 1972, but the issues that it caused within the
copyright law were not fixed until twelve years later. In the case Sony Corporation of America v.
Universal City Studios, Inc., Universal Studios sued Sony for copyright infringement. Sony had
recently created a new product called Betamax which was a video tape recorder that could tape
videos from home. As Depoorter states, breakthrough technologies make it more difficult to
apply existing rules by analogy. Even when courts seek to apply the relatively brightline rules of
copyright doctrine, the exact entitlement of rights may be surprisingly uncertain when applied to
a novel technology (1836). At the time, Betamax would classify as a novel technology, because
it was one of the first recording devices. Universal argued that selling Betamax to the public
allowed them to video record their own copyrighted works and sued Sony for the money they felt
they lost through their consumers illegally taping their works. However, the court ruled in favor
of Sony and against universal stating the sale of copying equipment...does not constitute
contributory infringement if the product is widely used for legitimate, unobjectionable purposes,
or, indeed, is merely capable of substantial noninfringing uses (Oyez). Because this was the first

case brought to the court regarding VCRs, the court had to come up with their own interpretation
of the law and apply it to the case. The US Copyright Act could not predict that recording
devices would eventually enter our world, therefore they were not covered under the copyright
act. Was the creation of these devices illegal? If people were able to buy and sell Universals
copyrighted products, did that classify as copyright infringement? In the end, this case allowed
for the devices to continue to be used, because there was no proof that they were created solely
for the use of recording Universals, or any other companies, copyrighted works.
In 1976, not only was the Copyright Act edited to its most recent version, the sale of
personal computers appeared on the market. However, personal computers did not really hit the
market until around the 1980s (Zimmermann). Internet and the digital media have a huge effect
on copyright law and its effectiveness today. If the idea that anything can be accessed on the
internet is true, then how does copyright laws play a role in this? If someone can access a movie
that has been uploaded to the internet before it is even out in theaters, where is the protection
from copyright law? David Hayes states,
Traditional copyright law was designed to deal primarily with the creation, distribution
and sale of protected works in tangible copies. In a world of tangible distribution, it is
generally easy to know when a copy has been made. The nature of the Internet,
however, is such that it is often difficult to know precisely whether a copy of a work
has been made and, if so, where it resides at any given time within the network (14).
This statement sums up the problem that occurs with copyright law and the internet. The
internet makes it easy to access works, and makes it very unclear whether those works are
protected by copyright or not. As the digital media age rises and technologies continue to change,
the effectiveness of copyright law comes more and more into question.
Several cases of copyright infringement have occurred since the law was written in 1976,
and they reflect the issues with the law trying to keep up with certain technologies. The first case

is Encyclopedia Britannica Educational Corp. v. Crooks (1983). The major decision in this case
was that making recordings and copies of broadcast television does not constitute as fair use and
is thus a copyright infringement. Encyclopedia Britannica brought BOCES (Board of
Cooperative Educational Services, New York District) to court stating that BOCES violated
copyright law when they videotaped the programs and dispersed them to schools in their district
(Stanford). Coming to a conclusion for this case was difficult, because before this time, no case
involving videotaping public broadcasting the distribution of these recording had been brought
before the court. Videotaping live broadcasts was a relatively new idea that became a problem
because of these relatively new recording devices. At this time, the U.S. Copyright act has no
specific answer on how to deal with video recordings and recording devices. Therefore the court
could not simply cite the act when giving a ruling. Instead the court was forced to come up with
their own interpretation of copyright law in the case of video recordings. They could not simply
base the decision on previous decisions. This case presented novel issues based on recent
technological advancements as well as unsettled issues of law and fact (Stanford).
The next case is Basic Books v. Kinko's Graphics Corp. (1991). This case dealt with the
issue of whether or not copy stores could sell excerpts of books to college students without the
permission of the publishers. Selling excerpts of books was a poplar trend in the 1980s and
publishers quickly caught on and realized the money that they were losing. As a result, Basic
Books sued the largest copying company, Kinkos. Trying to protect themselves, Kinko cited the
Fair Use Doctrine, stating they were allowed to make these copies because they were small in
size, and did not hurt the amounts of money owed to the publishers. However, the court still
found Kinkos guilty of copyright infringement, and they now have to pay certain fees to thee
publishers when they sell these excerpts (Encyclopedia of American Law). This case represents

problems that can occur because it is now so easy to make copies of things and distribute them
on your own. It is hard to pinpoint who the owner of original works are when excerpts can be
copied, reprinted, and merged with other works. Depoorter says that Whenever technological
advances create new means of making copies or communicating copyrighted works, difficult
questions arise as to how boundaries should be drawn around new uses of content created by the
new technology (1835). In this case, the new technology was allowing Kinkos to make and sell
excerpts of work. Judges must interpret the outdated copyright law in regards to the new
technologies and new issue of making copies to sell for ones own benefit.
In Religious Technology Center v. Netcom (1995) the question of whether the operator of
a blog or bulletin board on the internet should be held liable for what subscribers post on that
website. In this case RTC (Religious Technology Center) argued that Netcom should be held
liable for copyright infringement. Daniel Erlich was posting original works of Ron Hubbard, the
founder of Church of Scientology, to a bulletin board service ran by Netcom. The court ruled that
if Netcom had knowledge of what Erlich was doing, they could be held liable if they did not
remove his posts (Whyte). This case takes the issue of internet and copyright law head on. The
internet is incredibly murky waters when it comes to copyright. On the internet, anyone can say,
do, copy and paste almost anything. It makes it difficult to know what belongs to who and who
has the original rights over certain thoughts, statements, and pieces. It is only a matter of time
until we see cases starting to appear involving Twitter or Instagram and copyright infringement.
Like in this case, the website would be in charge of monitoring things that look like they have
been copyrighted and taking them down.
A more recent case dealing with copyright law is Cambridge University Press v. Patto
(2014). Cambridge publishers sued Georgia State for allowing their professors to make copies of

certain works and distribute them to students through their library online. GSU argued back
stating that it was allowed through the fair use doctrine. However, this is the first case that had to
deal with the fact of digital distribution. The problem with this is digital distribution, however,
skips the involvement by bookstores or copiers. Consequently, no one pays the publishers for
permission (Zhong). Like we saw in the Kinkos case, Kinkos had to pay the publishers when
they distributed excerpts of the different works, but with digital distribution this step is skipped.
Digital distribution is a relatively new idea, and The US Copyright Act has no information
pertaining to this. When the law was written, they could have never predicted that people would
be able to easily distribute copied works through a library online. For now, the case is on the side
of GSU and fair use, however the plaintiffs have appealed the case and a decision has yet to be
made.
Robert Steele is the Chief Operating Officer of DMN which is partnered with
RightsCorp, dedicated to catching people who violate copyright law. In 2015, Steele wrote an
article titled, If You Think Piracy is Dead, You Havent Looked at the Data and he included

this chart as his backup information.

This chart shows the alarming rate at which illegally downloaded files are shared across
America, and how they are predicted to keep growing. There is a predicted 51% increase in this
over the next five years. By 2019, over 1.8 Billion CDS worth of information will be illegal
distributed each month. So where does copyright law play a part in this? Steele says, I think
those that care about distribution of media without compensation on the internet have progressed
from outrage to fatigue, then to resignation, and ultimately to acceptance and its cousin, denial.

The U.S. Copyright had could not have predicted the impact that the internet would have on
works being illegal downloaded and passed around, and it cannot keep up with the changes that
have happened as we enter the digital media age.
The US Copyright act is beginning to run out of its time as an effective law. Originally
created to protect writings, and later edited to protect architectural designs, choreographies,
software, graphic arts, motion pictures, and sound recordings, the copyright law could have
never predicted how the digital media age we are in today would affect copyrighted works. The
several cases provided examples of the new technologies emerging at the time, and the effect
they had on copyright law. Issues surrounding technologies recordings, copies, internet and
digital archives have all emerged since the writing of the copyright law. With each one of these
cases, the court had no prior knowledge on how to make the rulings. At the time of these cases,
the Copyright Law was not up to date with these technologies, so it was basically ineffective. As
technology becomes more and more advanced, it is only a matter of time until The US Copyright
Law is in effective and no longer put to use.

Works Cited
"Basic Books v. Kinko's Graphics Corp." West's Encyclopedia of American Law, edition 2. 2008. The
Gale Group.
"Copyright Timeline: A History of Copyright in the United States." Association of Research Libraries
(ARL). Web.
Depoorter, Ben. "Technology and Uncertainty: The Shaping Effect on Copyright Law." University of
Pennsylvania Law Review 157 (2009): 1831-868. Web.

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"Encyclopedia Britannica Educ. Corp. v. Crooks." Stanford Copyright and Fair Use Center. Stanford
University Libraries, 22 Apr. 2013. Web.
Hayes, David L. "Advanced Copyright Issues on the Internet." Fenwick and West (2001): 1-232. Web.
"17 U.S. Code 102 - Subject Matter of Copyright: In General." Legal Information Institute. Cornell
Law, n.d. Web.
Sony Corporation of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc.." Oyez. Chicago-Kent College of Law at
Illinois Tech, n.d.
Steele, Robert. "If You Think Piracy Is Decreasing, You Haven't Looked at the Data..." Digital Music
News. N.p., 16 July 2015. Web.
Whyte, Ronald. "Religious Technology Center v. Netcom." Cornell Law. N.p., n.d. Web.
Zhong, Meng. "Cambridge University Press v. Patton: Who Really Won? Re: Fair Use." The National
Law Review. N.p., 12 Dec. 2014. Web.
Zimmermann, By Kim Ann. "History of Computers: A Brief Timeline." LiveScience. TechMedia
Network, 08 Sept. 2015.