Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2012

Abstract

Ten years ago, when I wrote War Stories,' copyright lawyers were fighting over the question whether unlicensed personal, noncommercial copying, performance or display would be deemed copyright infringement. I described three strategies that lawyers for book publishers, record labels, and movie studios had deployed to try to assure that the question was answered the way they wanted it to be. First, copyright owners were labeling all unlicensed uses as "piracy" on the ground that any unlicensed use might undermine copyright owners' control. That epithet helped to obscure the difference between unlicensed uses that invaded defined statutory exclusive rights and other unlicensed uses that might not be illegal. Second, copyright lobbyists insisted that Internet service providers and the makers of software or devices that allowed consumers to engage in unlicensed uses of copyrighted works had a legal obligation to act as copyright police. Finally, copyright owners had filed lawsuits against businesses that sought to exploit statutory gaps or legal privileges to make money from the unlicensed enjoyment of copyrighted works with the apparent goal of litigating those businesses into bankruptcy, whether or not their business models were actually illegal.

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